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In this 4-day adventure, students transform Petoi Bittle robotic dogs into Mars explorers. Each day brings a new mission:
Day 1 – First Steps on Mars: Assemble and program your rover dog to take its first walk across Martian terrain.
Day 2 – Avoid the Crater: Use sensors to detect and navigate around obstacles.
Day 3 – Search & Rescue: Teach your rover to recognize objects and find missing “astronauts” or sample tubes.
Day 4 – Mars Colony Challenge: Combine all skills to explore, navigate, and complete a capstone mission in a simulated Mars colony.
Meet NASA:In partnership with NASA, both the Mars Rover Dog Camp and Mars City Animation Winter Camp offer students a unique opportunity to learn directly from the minds shaping the future of space exploration. NASA instructors and engineers will lead exclusive sessions on the science and technology behind Mars missions, offering real-world insights into robotics, AI, 3D design, and planetary research. Campers will hear firsthand stories about current Mars initiatives, learn how NASA teams simulate Martian conditions, and discover how technology like robotics and design play a vital role in future colonization efforts.
Beyond classroom learning, students will also enjoy a special guided visit to NASA facilities (as the camp is held at Building 3, NASA Ames Research Center), where they can see space labs, mission control areas, and Mars research exhibits up close. This rare behind-the-scenes experience allows campers to witness how professionals apply creativity, coding, and engineering to solve challenges of living on another planet — inspiring them to see their own projects as the start of something even greater.
In a nutshell, students will learn coding, robotics, and problem-solving while leaving their pawprints on the Red Planet!
Campers will discover how Bittle’s open-source coding platform lets them program both simple moves and complex behaviors using block coding, Arduino, or Python. With the sensor pack, students turn their rover dog into a true space explorer: ultrasonic sensing helps it avoid craters and rocks, the IMU keeps it balanced on tilted surfaces, and optional AI vision modules let it recognize colors, shapes, or even markers placed around the colony.
Because Bittle comes with a library of pre-programmed “instincts” — from standing up to rolling over — students can build on existing functions to create new missions quickly, focusing on problem-solving rather than starting from scratch. Each robot becomes a personalized Martian pet, complete with a name, a role in the colony, and a story that grows with every challenge.
By the end of camp, students will have experienced robotics from multiple angles — mechanics, sensing, coding, and storytelling — and gained the confidence to see their rover dog not just as a toy, but as a bridge between imagination and real-world engineering.
