Bett 2026: What’s Hot in STEM and Robotics Education

2026-01-26 | Fredrik Ehrenstråle | Leave a comment

Last week, Bitcraze attended the BETT Show in London to get a better sense of how the education landscape is evolving.

BETT (British Educational Technology Show) brings together educators, edtech companies, curriculum developers, policymakers, and technology providers across the full spectrum of learning: from primary school to higher education and professional training.

For us, it was a valuable opportunity to listen and get an understanding of where the general EDU landscape is and where it is heading.

Meeting Familiar Faces, and New Ones

One of the most rewarding parts of the visit was reconnecting with existing partners already using the Crazyflie^TM in educational settings, and meeting new potential collaborators: teachers building robotics programs, universities modernising their lab infrastructure, and organisations developing national STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) and STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, and Mathematics) initiatives.

A recurring theme in many conversations was the need for platforms that are robust and safe to use in classrooms, scale from simple programming exercises to advanced autonomy and AI, support both structured teaching and open-ended experimentation, and are well documented (both for the teacher and for the student).

These are exactly the problems we have spent more than a decade working on.

What the Education Robotics Market Looks Like Today

Speaking with a wide range of robotics vendors, software providers, and solution integrators gave us a clearer picture of the realities of the K-12 and STEM market:

Procurement is often tender-based and highly structured
Budgets are tight and price sensitivity is real
There are many vendors offering similar-looking robotics kits
Hardware is physically robust and classroom-proof and safety is critical
Programming is dominated by Python, Scratch, Blockly, or proprietary visual tools
“AI-enabled” frequently means GPT-style programming blocks layered on top
LEGO compatibility is everywhere
micro:bit has effectively become a compelling entry-level control board
Buyers apply hard scrutiny to educational value and learning outcomes
Real adoption requires curricula, lesson plans, and teacher training programs
And in practice, U.S.-developed curricula often transfer reasonably well globally

Why the Crazyflie is a Great Fit for Education

Although the Crazyflie originated as a research platform, its characteristics map naturally to education:

STEM / STEAM (Upper Secondary & High School)

Students can work hands-on with control systems, sensors, wireless communication, programming, and basic AI in a physical system they can see, debug, and iterate on. It makes abstract concepts tangible.

Undergraduate Education

Crazyflie is increasingly used in robotics, embedded systems, and mechatronics courses to teach estimation, control, perception, and multi-agent systems without the overhead of large and expensive hardware.

Post-graduate Research

This remains our strongest domain: swarm robotics, learning-based control, human–robot interaction, indoor navigation, and distributed systems.

The continuity matters. Students don’t outgrow the platform. They grow with it. And, more importantly, the same openness that researchers value is increasingly relevant in education as well (particularly relevant in the light of recent geopolitical movements). Institutions want transparency, long-term maintainability, and the freedom to adapt tools to their pedagogy and not just consume closed kits.

Education is a Strategic Part of the Robotics Ecosystem

BETT confirmed that education is a strategic and structured part of the robotics ecosystem. Not just as “learning about robots”, but as a way to train future engineers, researchers, and system designers using realistic platforms from an early age.

Succeeding in this segment requires more than good hardware. It requires thoughtful packaging, clear educational positioning, proper teaching material, partner ecosystems, and long-term commitment.

To those we met at BETT, thank you for the conversations. And if you are working with STEM, STEAM, or robotics education and are curious about the Crazyflie, we are always happy to talk.

Where in the world is your Crazyflie made?

2025-11-24 | Barbara | Leave a comment

Since the end of 2024, we’ve been putting effort into spreading out our manufacturing. With international trade rules rapidly changing, it felt like the right moment to expand our production footprint. Doing this helps us keep stock more stable, react faster to demand, and makes life easier for you when it comes to potential import-related costs.

To make it happen, we’ve been working closely with our long-time partner in China, Seeed Studio. They’ve been helping us move the production of some of our items to Vietnam, where exciting new opportunities have opened up. This way, we can keep the same quality and reliability you’re used to while spreading out production across more locations, which makes our supply chain stronger.

Right now, four of our products are being made in Vietnam: the Crazyflie 2.1+, the Crazyflie 2.1 Brushless, the Flow Deck, and the Crazyradio 2.0. Meanwhile, the Charging Dock is made here in Sweden, and the Lighthouse Base Station comes from Taiwan. That means our production is now spread over four different locations!

We still produce in China as well—that’s where our newest deck will come from, for example. The plan is to gradually add more products made in Vietnam, spreading production across locations, reduce risk, and keep things running smoothly for both us and you. Over time, this will make it easier to maintain stock, respond quickly to demand, and give you a smoother experience no matter where you are in the world.

We also want to make it visible where your products come from when you shop with us. In May, we updated the store to clearly display the country of origin for each item. You can now find this information at the bottom of every product page, so you always know where the item in your cart is being made. For many of you, this small detail helps plan ahead and makes it easier to estimate any extra costs from international shipping.

The Color LED deck

2025-10-27 | Tobias | Leave a comment

It’s been a while since our last update on what started as the High powered LED deck prototype. We have finally had time to push this project forward and are aiming to have a release at the beginning of 2026.

A New Name and a Familiar Design

You might notice that the deck has a new name, something simpler and a bit catchier, the Color LED deck (bottom-mounted and top-mounted). The overall design and specs, however, remain very similar to the original concept:

Using a highly efficient high powered LED for maximum brightness
DC/DC driving circuitry for improved efficiency and consistent performance
A light diffuser for smooth, even illumination and wide visibility
Two versions, top or bottom mounted, depending on your build

The Color LED Deck brings fully programmable lighting to your Crazyflie, allowing you to create and control custom light patterns in real time. It’s useful for flying in darker environments, for visual tracking experiments, or for adding synchronized light effects in drone choreography. The deck is now also compatible with the Crazyflie 2.1 Brushless, bringing dynamic lighting to our most recent platform for the first time.

Software architecture

This deck will also be the first to use the new DeckCtrl architecture. If you’re curious about how that works, you can read more about it in this earlier blog post.

The Color LED deck has some intelligence built into it that runs on a STM32C0 MCU. The open-source firmware is still under development, and the repository can be found here.

Availability

The final pricing is still being determined, but make sure to sign up for the in-stock notification at the Color LED deck store pages (bottom-mounted and top-mounted) to get an update as soon as it’s available. And as always, keep an eye on the blog for more updates as we get closer to release.

Some Notes on Crazyflie Debugging

2025-07-28 | Rik | Leave a comment

Debugging the Crazyflie using the debug-adapter kit gives you direct access to the STM32 with a hardware debugger. It makes it possible to pause execution, step through code, and inspect what’s happening in real time.

Even if you’re working mostly at a higher level, having this kind of visibility can be a huge time-saver when something unexpected happens. It’s a tool I use frequently when tracking down firmware issues or verifying low-level behavior.

We already have documentation for debugging the STM32 on the Crazyflie using ST-LINK and VS Code, but there are still a few missing pieces; like how to use J-Link, how to debug other platforms (like the Crazyflie 2.1 Brushless), and how enabling debug builds can help.

Debug Build

If you’re debugging and your breakpoints aren’t landing where you expect, or stepping seems unpredictable, or variables aren’t visible, it’s probably because the firmware was built with compiler optimizations enabled. When you select a debug build, the build system disables optimization by setting the compiler flag -O0, which preserves line-by-line correspondence between source code and machine instructions. This makes stepping and inspecting variables much more reliable.

To enable a debug build, you need to set the CONFIG_DEBUG option in your Kconfig configuration. You can do this, for example, by running make menuconfig in a terminal. Then navigate to Build and debug options and select Enable debug build. After changing Kconfig options, re-run make to rebuild the firmware with the new configuration.

Enabling debug build `Kconfig` option through `menuconfig`

VS Code Debug Configuration

With debug builds enabled, you’ll get more predictable stepping and reliable breakpoints. The next step is setting up your debugger. Below is a launch.json configuration for VS Code that supports both ST-Link and J-Link, and works with Crazyflie 2.x and the 2.1 Brushless.

If you’re using a J-Link probe, you’ll need to install the J-Link software from Segger.

{
    // VS Code debug launch configurations for Crazyflie 2.x and 2.1 Brushless using J-Link and ST-Link
    "version": "0.2.0",
    "configurations": [
        {
            // ST-LINK configuration for Crazyflie 2.x
            "name": "STLink CF21 Debug",
            "cwd": "${workspaceRoot}",
            "executable": "${workspaceRoot}/build/cf2.elf",
            "request": "launch",
            "type": "cortex-debug",
            "device": "STM32F405",
            "svdFile": "${workspaceRoot}/tools/debug/STM32F405.svd",
            "servertype": "openocd",
            "configFiles": ["interface/stlink-v2.cfg", "target/stm32f4x.cfg"],
            "runToEntryPoint": "main",
            "preLaunchCommands": [
                "set mem inaccessible-by-default off",
                "enable breakpoint",
                "monitor reset"
            ]
        },
        {
            // ST-LINK configuration for Crazyflie 2.1 Brushless
            "name": "STLink CF21BL Debug",
            "cwd": "${workspaceRoot}",
            "executable": "${workspaceRoot}/build/cf21bl.elf",
            "request": "launch",
            "type": "cortex-debug",
            "device": "STM32F405",
            "svdFile": "${workspaceRoot}/tools/debug/STM32F405.svd",
            "servertype": "openocd",
            "configFiles": ["interface/stlink-v2.cfg", "target/stm32f4x.cfg"],
            "runToEntryPoint": "main",
            "preLaunchCommands": [
                "set mem inaccessible-by-default off",
                "enable breakpoint",
                "monitor reset"
            ]
        },
        {
            // J-Link configuration for Crazyflie 2.x
            "name": "JLink CF2 Debug",
            "cwd": "${workspaceRoot}",
            "executable": "${workspaceRoot}/build/cf2.elf",
            "request": "launch",
            "type": "cortex-debug",
            "device": "STM32F405RG",
            "svdFile": "${workspaceRoot}/tools/debug/STM32F405.svd",
            "servertype": "jlink",
            "runToEntryPoint": "main",
            "preLaunchCommands": [
                "set mem inaccessible-by-default off",
                "enable breakpoint",
                "monitor reset"
            ]
        },
        {
            // J-Link configuration for Crazyflie 2.1 Brushless
            "name": "JLink CF21BL Debug",
            "cwd": "${workspaceRoot}",
            "executable": "${workspaceRoot}/build/cf21bl.elf",
            "request": "launch",
            "type": "cortex-debug",
            "device": "STM32F405RG",
            "svdFile": "${workspaceRoot}/tools/debug/STM32F405.svd",
            "servertype": "jlink",
            "runToEntryPoint": "main",
            "preLaunchCommands": [
                "set mem inaccessible-by-default off",
                "enable breakpoint",
                "monitor reset"
            ]
        },
    ]
}Code language: JSON / JSON with Comments (json)

To use this setup with a different platform, like the Flapper, just change the executable field to point to the correct .elf file. By default, starting a debug session in VS Code will erase and reflash the firmware, so make sure the firmware is built beforehand. If you need to attach to a running target without flashing, you’ll need to modify the launch.json to skip loading the binary.

Bitcraze at ICRA 2025

2025-06-09 | Rik | Leave a comment

A couple of weeks ago, we were at ICRA 2025 in Atlanta. This year’s ICRA drew over 7,000 attendees, making it the biggest edition yet. We had a booth at the exhibition where we showed our decentralized swarm demo. The setup included a mix of Crazyflie 2.1+ units with Qi charging decks and Crazyflie 2.1 Brushless platforms with our new charging dock. The entire swarm operated onboard, with two Lighthouse base stations for positioning. More details about the setup can be found in the recent swarm demo blog post.

8 Crazyflies flying simultaneously in our decentralized swarm at ICRA 2025

Some of the brushless drones carried our high-powered LED deck prototype to make the swarm more visible and engaging. One of the drones also had a prototype camera streaming deck, which held up well despite the busy wireless environment.

A Different Perspective

This year we were also invited to participate in a workshop: 25 Years of Aerial Robotics: Challenges and Opportunities, where I (Rik) gave a short presentation about the evolution of positioning in the Crazyflie, from webcam-based AruCo marker tracking to the systems we use today.

Usually, we spend most of our time on the exhibition floor, so being part of a workshop like this was a different experience. It was interesting to hear researchers mention the Crazyflie in their work without needing to explain what it is. That kind of familiarity isn’t something we take for granted, and it was nice to see.

Many thanks to all the participants of the workshop '25 Years Of Aerial Robotics: Challenges And Opportunities' that we had the pleasure to co-organise for #ICRA2025. The speakers, young researchers, chairpersons and, of course, the attendees all made it a unique experience🦾 pic.twitter.com/WNfUUYLtop
— GRVC (@grvc_us) May 27, 2025

The workshop also gave us a chance to talk with both established researchers and newer faces in the field. What stood out most was hearing how people are using the Crazyflie in their work today. It’s very rewarding to see how what we do at the office connects with and supports real research.

Catching Up and Looking Around

One of the most rewarding parts of the conference was the chance to connect directly with people using the platform. We talked to many users, both current and past, and saw new research based on the platform. It was also great to reconnect with Flapper Drones, who build flapping-wing vehicles powered by the Crazyflie Bolt. And it was nice to see HopTo on the exhibition floor for the first time. The company is a spin-off from the Robotics and Intelligent Systems Lab at CityU Hong Kong, which published a Science Robotics paper on the hopcopter concept that used a Crazyflie. We also had the chance to catch up with a maintainer of CrazySim, an open-source simulator in the Crazyflie ecosystem. It’s always valuable to connect with people building on top of the platform, whether through research, hardware, or open-source tools.

Wrapping Up

ICRA 2025 was packed with activity. From demoing the swarm, to the workshop, to hallway conversations, it gave us a lot of valuable feedback and insight. Thanks to everyone who stopped by, joined a talk, or came to say hello.

Crazyflies locating threats in urban environments

2025-05-26 | Barbara | Leave a comment

As we mentioned in a previous blog post, the last couple of weeks have been full of exciting events in the US. We first began our adventure in Charlotte, North Carolina, where we attended the International Conference on Unmanned Aircraft Systems (ICUAS), as platinum sponsors.

We were especially thrilled to be involved because the final stage of the conference’s competition featured Crazyflies, which played a central role in the challenge.

The ICUAS UAV Competition

This year’s competition simulated a search mission in an urban environment. The goal was for teams to identify ArUco markers placed on multiple obstacles, while maintaining line-of-sight and communication among a swarm of three Crazyflies.

Each team’s UAVs launched from a designated base, navigated a known environment, and attempted to locate several targets. The drones relied on an OptiTrack system for positioning and used the AI deck as a camera for image recognition. Constant communication between the base and all UAVs was required throughout the mission.

The event, organized by the LARICS team, combined both simulation and real-world implementation. Their hard work ensured that competitors could smoothly transition their systems from digital models to actual flying drones. What followed was an intense and fun two-day hackathon.

Although the ICUAS UAV Competition drew interest from 26 teams globally, only five finalist teams made it to Charlotte to run their scenarios with real drones. In the end, it was Team Aerial Robotics from the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur (IITK) who took home first place—congratulations to them!

While the event went smoothly overall, some communication challenges cropped up—solved creatively by placing a radio in the center of the arena. Battery management was also key, with fully charged packs being a hot commodity to maximize flight time.

Research and Presentations

Alongside the competition, the conference featured a wide range of research presentations. We were proud to see Rik present on the AI deck during a workshop focused on embodied AI.

One of the highlights was the Best Paper Award, which—although we missed the talk, was awarded to a team from Queen’s university using the Crazyflie to simulate drone landings on ocean waves. You can read their fascinating paper here:
https://arxiv.org/abs/2410.21674

Final Thoughts

Overall, ICUAS 2025 was a great experience—full of innovation, collaboration, and of course, plenty of flight time. We’re grateful to the organizers, competitors, and everyone who stopped by our booth. Until next time!

RIG and other adventures

2025-03-10 | Barbara | Leave a comment

This week in Germany

This week, some of us are on an adventure!
Marcus and Tobias will be exploring both the RIG and Embedded World fairs.

RIG showcases the latest innovations in robotics and intelligent systems, while Embedded World is the place to be for cutting-edge embedded technologies. Both events promise amazing demos, insightful talks, and a chance to catch up with some of our collaborators.

Planning to attend either fair? Let’s meet up! We’d love to explore the exhibitions together, chat about cool technologies, or just geek out about the innovations on display. We’ll be wandering through Embedded World on Thursday and hitting RIG on Friday. Send us an email if you’d like to connect – we’re always up for grabbing coffee!

Next May in Atlanta

After our adventures as visitors, we’re thrilled to announce that we’ll be exhibiting at the International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA) 2025! Stop by our booth where we’ll be showcasing our latest demo. We’ll be, as always, available to discuss our newest products, answer your technical questions, and provide insights into how our solutions can transform your robotics applications. We’re also eager to hear your thoughts on what you’d like to see in our upcoming products. Mark your calendars and make sure to find us at Booth #131 – we may even have some presentations in the work, but nothing confirmed yet.

Today in the shop

And, last but not least, the Brushless is now available in a Swarm configuration! Both the Lighthouse Swarm bundle and Loco Swarm bundle have been added to our shop. These new bundles feature all the same components as our standard Swarm packages, but come equipped with the Crazyflie 2.1 Brushless instead of the Crazyflie 2.1+ model.

Release 2025.02

2025-02-24 | Rik | Leave a comment

We’re happy to announce that release 2025.02 is now available. This update includes fixes and improvements for the Crazyflie 2.1 Brushless, along with stability enhancements for the AI-deck.

Release overview

crazyflie-firmware release 2025.02 GitHub

crazyflie2-nrf-firmware release 2025.02 GitHub

aideck-esp-firmware release 2025.02 GitHub

aideck-gap8-examples release 2025.02 GitHub

cfclient (crazyflie-clients-python) release 2025.2 GitHub, PyPi

cflib (crazyflie-lib-python) release 0.1.28 GitHub, PyPi

Major changes

Automatically disarm Crazyflie 30 seconds after landing if manual arming is required
Calculate latency, receive uplink RSSI, calculate bandwidth congestion and packet rate in Python library
Improved AI-deck GAP8 initialization stability by delaying boot by 5 seconds if the deck is attached
Improved AI-deck WiFi streamer stability
Improved Crazyflie 2.1 Brushless platform default settings and parameters
Crazyflie 2.1 Brushless ESC flashing fixes
Modernize Python packaging

Brushless’s feedback

2025-02-04 | Barbara | Leave a comment

It’s hard to believe it’s already been almost a month since the Crazyflie 2.1 Brushless was released. We know some of you have already had the chance to take it for a spin, and we’re really excited to hear what you think.

Here at the office, we have started using them a lot – to discover gaps in the documentation, to test our new features, or simply to make nice trajectories during a Fun Friday as shown here:

We’re constantly amazed by it and the new capacity it brings… But, interestingly, we haven’t received many support questions so far… which has us wondering—did we accidentally make it too good? Jokes aside, we’d love to get your thoughts! Whether you have feedback, questions, or just want to share your experience, we’re all ears.

We have a quick form for you here to fill out – it takes a couple of minutes and would help us a lot:

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfjnTdUQtCEv9isk4UbASLbe1AxESGtT8Z2q9OfSba-fxYg7g/viewform?usp=sharing

Of course, we’re always available by email if there is more you wish to say: contact@bitcraze.io.

Looking back at 2024

2024-12-23 | Rik | Leave a comment

As 2024 comes to an end, it’s the perfect time to reflect on what we’ve accomplished over the past year. A major highlight has been our work on the Crazyflie 2.1 Brushless. We’re thrilled that it will be available early in the new year! While much of our efforts focused on refining and preparing the platform as a whole, we also introduced some standout features like support for contact charging on a charging pad, perfecting the specially optimized motors, and propeller guards to enhance safety for both users and the drone.

The Crazyflie 2.1 Brushless with propeller guards on a prototype charging pad

Finalizing the integration of the Crazyflie 2.1 Brushless into our software ecosystem and expanding its documentation were key steps in preparing for its launch. These efforts ensure compatibility, improve the user experience, and make the platform more accessible to the community. We’re looking forward to a smooth launch and to seeing how the community will utilize the new platform!

This year, we introduced updates to the Crazyflie 2.1 kit, making the 47-17 propellers the new default and including an improved battery. These upgrades enhance flight performance and endurance, culminating in the release of the Crazyflie 2.1+—an optimized iteration of our established platform.

The Crazyflie 2.1 Brushless featured on the cover of Science Robotics vol. 9, no. 92

Community

In 2024, Bitcraze had an action-packed year, engaging with the robotics community through numerous conferences, workshops, and live events.

In May, we attended ICRA 2024 in Yokohama. We collected several research posters that now proudly feature at the office. Kimberly presented at the Robotics Developer Day, where she won Best Speaker Award for her impressive live hardware demos with ROS2. We co-organized the ‘Aerial Swarm Tools and Applications’ workshop at RSS 2024 in Delft. Arnaud and Kimberly shared insights on demo-driven development on an episode of OpenCV Live!. Additionally, we had a booth at ROSCon ’24 in Odense, connecting with the vibrant ROS community and showcasing our latest developments.

And don’t forget the developer meetings, where we shared some more behind the scenes information and collected invaluable feedback from the community.

We also released a new edition of our research compilation video, showcasing some of the coolest projects from 2023 and 2024 that highlight the versatility and impact of the Crazyflie platform in research.

Team

In the past year, Bitcraze saw significant changes within the team. in February, Rik rejoined the team. Tove started at Bitcraze in April. Mandy, with whom we’ve already worked extensively over the years, joined as our production representative in Shenzen. At the end of the year, we said goodbye to Kimberly, whose contributions will be deeply missed. Additionally, we had Björn with us for a few months, working on his master’s thesis on fault detection, and Joe continued his industrial postdoc at Bitcraze that began in December 2023. Looking ahead, Bitcraze is hiring for two new roles: a Technical Sales Lead and a Technical Success Engineer, to support our ongoing projects and customer collaborations.

As we close the chapter on 2024, we’re proud of the progress we’ve made, the connections we’ve strengthened, and the milestones we’ve reached. With exciting launches, new faces on the team, and continued collaboration with our community, we’re ready to soar to even greater heights in 2025. Thank you for being part of our journey!