A short, high-leverage set of free resources a student can use to warm on software engineering practices - prior to coming into office hours.
1. Terminal / Unix on macOS
If you do one thing, make it this command line crash course (interactive):
MDN – Command line crash course
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Learn_web_development/Getting_started/Environment_setup/Command_line
Great for understanding basic commands like ls, cd, mkdir, and getting the general “feel” of a terminal.
Mac-specific overview
How to use Terminal on Mac – MacPaw
https://macpaw.com/how-to/use-terminal-on-mac
Helps connect what you see in Finder (folders, files) to what you see in Terminal (paths).
2. Git & GitHub Basics
Target: 1–2 hours, even if you watch at 1.25x.
Video: Git and GitHub for Beginners (YouTube)
freeCodeCamp – Git and GitHub for Beginners: Crash Course
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RGOj5yH7evk
Covers the fundamentals:
What a repository is
What commits are
How pushing/pulling works
Basic GitHub workflow
Optional reading companion
Git and GitHub for Beginners – Course Page
https://www.classcentral.com/course/freecodecamp-git-and-github-for-beginners-crash-course-89437
A written overview of the same crash course, good for quick reference.
3. Cursor (So It Doesn’t Feel Mysterious)
You do not need to master Cursor before the class, just enough to download it, know what it is and why we use it.
Official Cursor docs
Cursor Documentation
https://cursor.com/docs
Skim:
Chat
Inline completions
Refactor/Rewrite
Goal: get comfortable with the idea that Cursor is an AI-augmented code editor, not a totally new “thing” to be scared of. It is actually a fork of Microsofts VS-Code, so if you have used that or another text editor it should feel somewhat familiar, but with AI Chat capability and the ability for the AI to read and modify your code.
Cursor in practice (examples)
Cursor AI: A Guide With 10 Practical Examples – DataCamp
https://www.datacamp.com/tutorial/cursor-ai-code-editor
Skim the first half to see how people actually use Cursor day-to-day (no need to understand everything).
4. ROS 2 “Mental Picture” (Concepts Only)
Here the goal is understanding concepts, not installing anything:
Nodes
Topics
Messages
The idea of
talker/listener
ROS 2 tutorials homepage, we use the latest version of ROS 2 which is called "Kilted-Kaiju".
ROS 2 Tutorials – Kilted
https://docs.ros.org/en/kilted/Tutorials.html
Skim the top of the page and click into:
Getting started / beginner sections
Titles that mention running or using ROS 2 (not installing it)
Basic ROS 2 concepts
Basic Concepts – ROS 2 Docs (Kilted)
https://docs.ros.org/en/kilted/Concepts/Basic.html
Covers:
Nodes
Topics
Messages
Discovery
Read until your eyes glaze over, then stop. You’ll see all of this again live in class.
Optional: ROS 2 crash course video
ROS 2: Understanding Nodes – YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IP83Yh1Oy9A
Optional: Quick node/launch example
The Construct – ROS2 in 5 Minutes: Launch a ROS2 Node
https://www.theconstruct.ai/ros2-5-mins-001-launch-ros2-node/
Short article + video on ros2 run, ros2 pkg list, and launching nodes.
5. “If You Only Have 2–3 Hours, Do This”
-
Command line (30–45 min)
MDN command line crash course – focus on the basics (
ls,cd,mkdir,rm).
-
Git/GitHub (60–90 min)
Watch the first 60–90 minutes of the freeCodeCamp “Git and GitHub for Beginners” crash course.
-
ROS 2 concepts (30–45 min)
Skim the ROS 2 Basic Concepts page to get a feel for nodes, topics, and messages.
Everything else (Cursor docs, ROS2 crash course video, The Construct tutorial) is bonus XP if you feeling motivated before coming in for office hours / Day 0.