How to use this course

A course only works if you can actually finish it. This lesson shows you how each lesson is built, how to pace yourself, and what to do when things go wrong. Five minutes here will save you hours later.

Phone or laptop?

Both work, at different stages.

On a phone, you can:

• Read every lesson.
• Do all of Start here, Foundations, The free AI stack and Prompting.
• Build and publish Project 1, your personal website. The workshop this course comes from was done entirely on phones.
• Use AI chat tools like Gemini in your browser.

You need a laptop or desktop for:

• Setup (installing VS Code, Node.js and Git).
• Projects 2 and 3, and the AI tools in modules 8 and 9.

A modest laptop is fine. 4 to 8 GB of RAM is enough for everything here. A college lab computer or a family laptop for an hour a day also works. The setup module explains your options in detail, including Chromebooks and phone-only paths: see Laptop or phone.

How much to do each day

Aim for 30 to 45 minutes a day. That is usually one or two lessons, including the task.

Small and steady beats big and rare. Thirty minutes every day for six weeks will take you further than two long Sundays and then nothing for a month. Your brain needs sleep between sessions to make new things stick.

Some practical ideas:

• Pick a fixed time. After college, after dinner, or on the bus if you are reading.
• Stop at the end of a lesson, not in the middle of one. It is easier to start again tomorrow.
• Project lessons take longer. Give yourself a weekend morning for those.

It is fine to be slow

Some lessons will take you three times longer than the time shown. That is normal.

The duration on each lesson is a rough guide for reading and doing the task when things go smoothly. Installing software on an old laptop, waiting for a page to load on a weak network, or fixing your first error can take much longer. None of that means you are bad at this. It means you are doing it for real.

Everyone who builds software gets stuck. Experienced developers get stuck every day. The difference is that they expect it, so it does not scare them.

How each lesson is built

Every lesson follows the same pattern, so you always know where you are.

1. Why it matters. One to three sentences at the top.
2. The lesson. Short sections with headings. Read them in order.
3. Your task. One concrete thing to do right now.
4. Check yourself. Two to four statements to tick.

Boxes you will see

Some text appears in coloured boxes:

Prompts and code

Text you should copy into an AI tool appears in a box labelled Prompt, with a Copy prompt button, like this:

You are a patient teacher. Explain what a website is to someone who has never coded, in four sentences, with no jargon.

Code and terminal commands appear in similar boxes, labelled with the language, each with its own Copy button:

node --version

When commands are different on Windows and Mac, you will see both, clearly labelled.

Words in square brackets

Inside prompts, text like [your name] or [paste your error here] means "replace this with your own details". Delete the brackets too.

Your task, and checking yourself

The Your task section is the most important part of every lesson. Do it before you move on. If a lesson has no task you can do right now, for example because you do not have a laptop yet, write down that you skipped it and come back later.

The Check yourself list is a quick honesty test. Read each statement. If you can say "yes, I can do that" without looking back, tick it. If not, reread the part you missed. It takes one minute and it catches the gaps before they become problems.

Your account and your progress

Logging in. This course has no password. When you log in, you type your email address and we email you a one-time login code. It expires after 10 minutes. If it does not arrive, check your Spam and Promotions folders. Never share this code with anyone. We will never ask you for it.

Marking lessons complete. At the end of each lesson there is a Mark complete button (it says Mark complete and continue when there is a next lesson). Press it when you have done the task and can tick every item in Check yourself, not just when you have read to the bottom. If you pressed it by mistake, the Mark as not done link undoes it.

Your progress is saved to your account, so you can switch between phone and laptop and pick up where you left off. Your dashboard shows how far you have got.

Your certificate. When all 78 lessons are marked complete, your dashboard lets you claim your certificate of completion.

Learn in order

The modules are in a deliberate order. Each one makes the next make sense.

You may be tempted to jump straight to the Antigravity module or the AI app. Please do not, at least the first time through. Skipping the foundations is the most common reason people give up. Things feel like magic, then the magic breaks, and they have no idea why.

After you finish, the Resources module is designed for jumping around. The prompt library and the troubleshooting guide are worth bookmarking.

When you get stuck

Try these in order:

1. Read the error message slowly. Out loud if it helps. Errors are usually more helpful than they look.
2. Check the lesson again. Most problems are a skipped step.
3. Look in the troubleshooting guide. Common problems and their fixes are collected there.
4. Ask an AI tool, properly. Module 4 teaches you how. The short version: say what you did, what you expected, and what actually happened, with the exact error copied in.
5. Ask a human. Email info@axonovatechnologies.com with the lesson link and what you tried. We reply within 2 working days.

Your task

1. Decide where and when you will do this course. Write it down: for example, "Laptop, 9 pm, 40 minutes, Monday to Saturday."
2. If you are on a phone, find this course's address in your browser and add it to your home screen or bookmarks.
3. Mark this lesson complete when you are done.

Check yourself

• I know which parts of the course I can do on a phone and which need a laptop.
• I have a daily time and duration that I can actually keep.
• I know what Your task and Check yourself are for, and when to mark a lesson complete.
• I know what to do first when I get stuck.