You Asked, We Listened: High School Robotics and What's Next for Pilot and Axle

At almost every school visit and conference booth this year, we heard the same two questions from teachers and administrators:

"Do you have anything for high school?"

"What's next for Pilot and Axle?"

We wrote them down, we took them seriously, and we spent this year building the answers. Here's where things stand.

You Asked for High School: Meet Medical Robotics

For years, our programs ended in 8th grade. Students would finish Introduction to Robotics with Axle, and their teachers would ask us where those students could go next. Now there's an answer.

Medical Robotics is our first high school course, built as a CTE pathway for grades 8-12. It launches in January 2027, and it takes True Robotics from K-8 all the way to K-12.

A powered prosthetic arm, built from CTE Kit pieces in Unit 1.

Students learn how the human body works, then build and code robots that help it. Every unit starts with a real patient and ends with a test clinicians actually use, like the Box and Block Test that therapists use to measure hand function. The course is clearly medical, but it's built on the same robotics, coding and engineering design that run through all of our programs.

What Students Build

1. Powered Prosthetic Arm for someone who lost an arm above the elbow

2. Steady Spoon for someone who can't keep a spoon level because of a tremor

3. Rehab Exoskeleton for someone rebuilding arm strength after a stroke

4. Hospital Delivery Robot for nurses and patients on a busy hospital floor

5. Teleoperated Surgical Gripper for a surgeon doing minimally invasive surgery

6. Capstone: Their Own Medical Robot for a real patient need each team picks

How the Course Works

Medical Robotics is a 45 lesson course, and each lesson runs 45-60 minutes. Small teams share one True Robotics CTE Kit, which pairs FlexForge parts with our robot electronics: motors, servos, sensors and a camera.

Students code in blocks or Python in the True Robotics Playground, design custom parts in CAD, and keep a Design History File the way a real medical device team does. Any 3D printed parts the course needs ship inside the kit, so a 3D printer at your school is a bonus, not a requirement.

Like every True Robotics program, Medical Robotics comes with custom 1-on-1 training for your teachers, in person or virtual.

See the full Medical Robotics course

You Asked What's Next: Pilot 2.0 and Axle 2.0

You also asked what's next for Pilot and Axle. Honestly? We've been dying to tell you.

Behind the scenes, our team spent this year redesigning our robot electronics from the ground up. Pilot 2.0 and Axle 2.0 arrive in the second half of 2027 with a brand new electronics package, the biggest upgrade either robot has ever had.

We can't show you everything yet, but here's a hint:

• A new robot brain

• Object detection with the cameras

• Easier to use batteries built for classroom life

• A few surprises we're saving for later

We'll share more over the coming months, including what it means for schools that already have Pilot and Axle. You'll hear it here first.

Meanwhile, on the Road

When we're not in the lab, we're in classrooms, gyms and conference halls. A few favorite moments from this fall:

MassCUE at Gillette Stadium. Two days of great conversations with educators, and students took over our demo area.

Newton Public Schools. 8th graders sketch their FlexForge designs in their engineering journals before they build.

Veritas Prep. Students building their own Axle robots, one piece at a time.

Teachers build it first. Every school gets custom 1-on-1 training, in person or virtual, so teachers are ready before students ever open a kit.

All told, True Robotics has now reached more than 50,000 students, with four programs that span K-12.

Ready to Plan for 2027?

Thinking about Medical Robotics for January? CTE Kits have a 6 to 8 week lead time, so now is the time to start planning. Tell us a little about your school and we'll put together a plan for your grades, from Treads in kindergarten all the way to Medical Robotics in high school.

Request a quote or give us a call at (774) 276-9820

Keep the questions coming. We're listening.

The True Robotics Team