Week 3 is the program's cognitive peak. Trainees install the flight controller, GPS module, and receiver, then configure all three through BetaFlight — software work where mistakes are subtle (a wrong UART setting, an inverted accelerometer axis) rather than visible (a cold joint). The shift from physical build to software configuration is the steepest learning curve of the program. By Friday afternoon each drone has a complete flight stack and a bound radio, and the FC arms in response to the trainee's transmitter — but no propellers yet, no flying yet. Just the brain that next week will learn to fly.
This page is the day-by-day expansion of Week 3 in the curriculum overview. Each day is its own panel below — click a day tab to see the morning and afternoon schedules in detail, the hands-on activities with steps, the materials list, common pitfalls, and the end-of-day check.
Designed for two audiences. Cohort instructors running a Week 3 cohort use this as the lesson plan — block-by-block timing, the rubric for the stack assessment, where trainees in earlier cohorts typically struggle (BetaFlight Modes tab is the big one). Trainees use this as preview-and-review — what configuration step to verify before each test, the BetaFlight tabs to revisit at home, what failsafe behaviour means and why it matters.
The cognitive peak. Week 1 was foundational; Week 2 was hands-on hardware. Week 3 is software configuration, where mistakes are subtle and visual inspection won't catch them. The instructor's job shifts again — from circulating between soldering stations to working through BetaFlight settings tab-by-tab with trainees. Cohort historical: Week 3 is the week with the highest Saturday-session rate (~10-15% of trainees, vs ~5% in Weeks 1-2). That's normal and expected; the curriculum builds in catch-up time. Trainees who struggle here typically catch up by Week 4.
Week 3 introduces the software side of drone work. Trainees should arrive Monday with their Week 2 half-drones (still locked in workshop) ready to receive the FC, and prepared for several days of working with BetaFlight Configurator. Software-confidence varies more than hardware-confidence; instructors plan for this.
Recommended pre-week reading (optional but useful)
Trainees who arrive having read these track Week 3 content noticeably better:
Total: ~75-90 minutes of pre-reading. Strongly recommended this week (more than Weeks 1-2). Trainees who skip pre-reading will track Day 1 fine but find Days 4-5 (BetaFlight Modes and failsafe) harder.
Schedule: Mon–Fri, 09:00–16:00 with a 1-hour lunch break. 4 contact hours per day; 20 hours total. Workshop opens 08:30; trainees retrieve their builds and set up workstations. Workshop closes 16:30 — builds stay locked in workshop overnight; transmitters returned to the pool. Notable Week 3 difference: Tuesday afternoon includes ~30 min of outdoor time for GPS lock acquisition; bring sun protection and water for that block.
Each day below is a self-contained lesson plan. Click a day to see the morning and afternoon detailed schedules, the hands-on activities with specific steps, materials, common pitfalls, and the end-of-day check that confirms learning. Days are sequenced — running them out of order will produce gaps.
Day 1 installs the brain. Morning: physically mounting the SpeedyBee F405 V4 flight controller on its rubber gummies, connecting the FC ribbon cable to the existing 4-in-1 ESC stack from Week 2, and verifying USB-C connectivity. Afternoon: first contact with BetaFlight Configurator — installing it on workshop laptops, connecting to each build, and walking through the Setup tab to watch the gyro respond to physical drone movement in real time. By end of day, each trainee has a build that BetaFlight recognises and that displays live sensor data.
Common Day 1 pitfalls
End-of-day check. Before leaving, each trainee shows the instructor:
Builds disconnected from USB; covered at workstations. Trainees with persistent connection issues stay 15-30 minutes for one-on-one troubleshooting.
Tonight's prep for Tuesday. Optional: read fc-setup.html Section 3 (GPS configuration). Required: bring sun protection and water for Tuesday afternoon's outdoor GPS lock test (~30 min outdoors).
Day 2 adds the GPS module — the sensor that makes return-to-home, position hold, and survey missions possible. Morning: GPS physical install with strict antenna orientation rules (away from carbon fibre; clear sky view), UART soldering, and BetaFlight GPS feature configuration. Afternoon: trainees walk their drones outside, wait for satellite acquisition, verify the position lock in BetaFlight's GPS tab. Most cohort 02 trainees see their first GPS lock as a moment of genuine satisfaction: the drone now knows where it is on Earth.
Common Day 2 pitfalls
End-of-day check. Each trainee shows the instructor:
Builds stored at workstations; GPS module stays installed for the rest of the program. Pairs of trainees who both got fast locks today (under 3 minutes) help slow-lock pairs reposition GPS antennas during catch-up time tomorrow.
Tonight's prep for Wednesday. Optional: read fc-setup.html Section 4 (receiver protocols) and Section 5 (UART assignments). Required: bring patience for receiver wiring and binding — both physical and software steps must work together for the drone to respond to the radio. Tomorrow has the highest "moment-of-magic" potential: end of day, the drone responds to TX stick inputs for the first time.
Day 3 connects the radio. Morning: physically installing the FlySky FS-iA6B receiver, soldering 3 wires to a free UART on the FC, and configuring the Ports tab for receiver protocol. Afternoon: the binding ceremony — pairing each build to a specific transmitter using the bind plug. Cohort defaults track which transmitter binds to which build for the rest of the program. By end of day, each transmitter's sticks generate readable channel data inside BetaFlight's Receiver tab.
Common Day 3 pitfalls
End-of-day check. Before leaving, each trainee shows the instructor:
Trainees with unresolved channel issues stay 15-30 minutes for one-on-one troubleshooting. Cohort experience: ~85% complete all checks Wednesday; ~15% need part of Thursday morning to finish receiver-side work.
Tonight's prep for Thursday. Optional: read fc-setup.html Section 5 (modes and failsafe) carefully — this is Thursday's focus. Required: come ready for the most BetaFlight-intensive day of the program. Thursday touches Channel Mapping, Modes, and Failsafe tabs — three new BetaFlight areas in one day.
Day 4 is the most BetaFlight-tab-heavy day of the program. Most cognitive load of any single day in the cohort. Morning: channel mapping (Receiver tab), throttle-cut and arming switch assignment, accelerometer calibration. Afternoon: configuring Angle / Horizon / Acro flight modes, then the critical failsafe behaviour — what the drone does when radio link is lost. Cohort default policy: failsafe configuration is non-negotiable for survey missions; trainees who don't configure failsafe correctly cannot pass Friday's assessment.
Common Day 4 pitfalls
End-of-day check. Each trainee shows the instructor:
Builds stay at workstations; configuration is saved to FC memory. This is the day where Week 3 is genuinely cognitively heavy; trainees often look exhausted by 16:00. That's expected.
Tonight's prep for Friday. Friday is stack assessment + Week 3 review. Optional: review fc-setup.html in full one more time (the canonical reference). Required: rest. Friday's assessment touches everything from this week — channel mapping, arming, modes, failsafe, GPS lock. Tired trainees miss steps; rested trainees pass cleanly.
Friday consolidates Week 3. Morning: the stack assessment — each trainee demonstrates a complete flight stack (armed FC, motors responding to throttle stick, mode switching, GPS lock, failsafe triggering). Afternoon: the misconfiguration drill — instructors load 5 sabotaged BetaFlight configurations onto demo builds; trainees diagnose what's wrong and fix it. Builds the BetaFlight diagnostic muscle that becomes critical when graduates configure their own future builds independently.
Common Day 5 pitfalls
End-of-day check. Each trainee's assessment rubric is signed and goes in their cohort folder. Status options:
Cohort default historical: ~70% pass cleanly Friday morning, ~20% conditional pass, ~10% Saturday session. Week 3 has the highest Saturday rate of any week; this is by design — the curriculum builds in the time to support trainees through the cognitively-hardest week. No trainee is removed from the cohort over Week 3 assessment.
Weekend. Optional self-study: read sensors.html in full and watch any cohort-recommended NDVI introduction videos (will significantly accelerate Week 4). Builds stay in workshop. Saturday session for trainees who need it. Otherwise: rest. Week 4 reintroduces the physical/safety-critical dimension — first hover with props means real flight risk for the first time. Rested trainees make safer pilots.
Aggregated materials list for an instructor running Week 3 with 6 trainees. Cohort default budget: ~₱2,800 per trainee for Week 3 add-on components (FC, GPS, receiver, gummies, USB cable). Workshop laptops and BetaFlight Configurator are reused across cohorts; transmitters from Week 1 simulator are repurposed for binding.
Per-cohort cost: ~₱18,000-22,000 total for 6 trainees (dominated by ~₱2,800 × 6 trainee add-on kits = ~₱17,000). Workshop laptops and transmitters are amortised across many cohorts. Per-cohort consumables: ~₱500-1,500 (solder, heat shrink, replacement small components, occasional FC or receiver replacement for trainees who damage during configuration).
The Week 3 assessment is the stack demonstration — five specific things each trainee shows on their build, in sequence, with instructor observing. Like prior weeks, the assessment is diagnostic — trainees who don't pass cleanly get targeted Saturday support, not removal from the cohort. Week 3 has the highest Saturday rate of any week (~10%); this is expected because the week is genuinely cognitively hardest.
Stack assessment rubric
Each trainee performs the following five demonstrations on their own build, in sequence, with instructor observing:
Pass: 5/5. Conditional pass: 4/5 with minor documented issues. Saturday session: less than 4/5.
Misconfiguration drill assessment (afternoon)
Each pair rotates through 5 misconfigured demo builds. For each scenario, the pair must:
Cohort default expectation: each pair correctly identifies at least 3 of 5 scenarios. Like Week 2's drill, this is graded on diagnostic process more than perfect identification.
Cohort default historical for Week 3: ~70% of trainees pass the stack assessment cleanly Friday morning; ~15-20% pass conditionally with minor issues; ~10-15% need Saturday session. The Saturday rate is intentionally higher this week — Week 3 is the cognitive peak; the curriculum is designed to support trainees who need extra time. All cohort 02 trainees who needed Saturday Week 3 sessions completed the program.