Applications are now open for the Flying Car Nanodegree program! Apply today to build the future of smart transportation, and take your innovations to the skies!
The most practical career move for today’s engineer is to work on the most wildly ambitious technologies in existence. This may seem like counterintuitive career advice, but lifelong learners at the cutting-edge are uniquely positioned to succeed in their careers, and to shape our future.
Join the Inaugural Class of Flying Car Engineers!
Today we are thrilled to open applications for our most ambitious program yet—the Flying Car Nanodegree program! Successful applicants will join a growing vanguard of highly-skilled autonomous flight engineers who are redefining the future of transportation and aerial robotics.
Are you ready for a future in this transformational field? Apply by February 7, and take your place in the historic inaugural class. You can even earn a special “Early Adopter” first-term tuition offer! Read on for additional details about this program, and this special pricing opportunity.
The Flying Car Nanodegree Program
Udacity founder and flying car pioneer Sebastian Thrun announced this program four months ago, and the responses that have emerged since make clear the world is taking serious notice of the tremendous potential this program represents:
“This should produce Nanodegree program holders with skill sets that can scale to match the opportunity–from practical applications today in areas like commercial drone asset monitoring, to a future where short-range autonomous cargo and even passenger transportation is a viable real world tech.” —TechCrunch
Judging by the incredible number of you who’ve joined our Flying Car notification list since Sebastian’s announcement, and who’ve been reading our new Flying Car News series, it’s clear it isn’t just media who are excited—we’ve got a new generation of engineers who are ready to get to work, and excited to take their innovations to the skies!
A World-Class Team of Instructors and Partners
As announced in September, the Flying Car Nanodegree program boasts a world-class lineup of all-star aerial innovators:
Sebastian Thrun: Acknowledged “Father of the Self-Driving Car;” professor at Stanford; founder of X, Kitty Hawk, and Udacity.
Nicholas Roy: Professor at MIT; founder of X Project Wing.
Angela Schoellig: Professor at University of Toronto; MIT 35 Under 35.
Raffaello D’Andrea: Professor at ETH Zurich; co-founder of Kiva Systems (now Amazon Robotics) and founder of Verity Studios.
As investment in the emerging field of autonomous flight ramps up significantly, the talent wars are simultaneously heating up as well. Our program offers the unrivaled opportunity to master the in-demand skills necessary to secure rewarding employment with the increasing number of companies—from large organizations such as Airbus, Boeing, and Uber, to startups like Kitty Hawk, Lilium, and Terrafugia—hiring in the flying car space.
“For anyone psyched about this future of flight, the good news is that all the companies trying to make it happen might soon have access to a bigger workforce.” —Wired
Program Curriculum
In this program, you’ll learn the core concepts required to design and develop robots that fly. Working with the quadrotor test platform and our custom flight simulator, you will implement planning, control, and estimation solutions in Python and C++. You’ll learn from world-class experts, and write aircraft-ready code.
This curriculum is not only pedagogically innovative, but also relevant to present and future challenges:
“The most powerful part of this program is the hands-on experience students get building real solutions for real systems. Only by seeing things through all the way to actual implementation will they be ready to create the flight systems of the future.” — Raffaello D’Andrea, on Learning by Doing
Run Your Code in the Sky
The Flying Car Nanodegree Program will empower you to translate concepts from the classroom to simulation and, ultimately, to your own self-flying drones. Here are some key details and features:
Classroom Simulator: You will code in the classroom using Python + Jupyter and immediately see effects in the custom Unity-based simulator.
Flight-Ready Simulator: You will then translate this code into C++ and run it in a stripped-down but aerodynamically realistic simulator.
Hardware: For students with their own compatible drones, we will provide a list of compatible drone platforms and instructions to port code. Note that porting code is optional and not a requirement of the core curriculum.
How to Apply
We are now accepting applications to the Flying Car Nanodegree program here, and applications will remain open until February 7, 2018. The program is comprised of two terms of 12 weeks each. The tuition for each term is $1200, paid prior to the start of the term. Applicants to the first term will receive a submission response by February 13, 2018. The classroom is scheduled to open in late February.
Apply by February 7, 2018 and you will be eligible for a special Early Adopter tuition rate of $899 for the first term!
Please note that graduates of our Self-Driving Car Engineer, Intro to Self-Driving Cars, and Robotics Software Engineer Nanodegree programs earn guaranteed admission into the Flying Car Nanodegree program. Graduates of these programs will receive emails with relevant details. In addition, students currently enrolled in either the Robotics Software Engineer or Self-Driving Car Engineer Nanodegree programs, who are in their final term and on-track to graduate on time, can also take advantage of the guaranteed admission opportunity.
Build the Future
The potential applications of autonomous flight technology are incredible, and we are already seeing powerful examples of this today, from disaster relief efforts in the aftermath of Hurricane Irma to bringing internet connectivity and emergency aid to the developing world.
Enrollment in this program represents your opportunity to help write the history of this dawning age of smart transportation, and take your innovations to the skies.
Apply today, and we’ll look forward to seeing you in the classroom!
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Explore a Free Preview of our Flying Car Nanodegree program!
Not only will you meet your instructors and explore the full curriculum, you can even download our flight simulator, and try out the program’s first project: Backyard Flyer! You’ll be able to get a drone to takeoff, fly a predetermined path, and land in a simulated backyard environment.
