  Although robotics courses are well established in higher education, the
courses often focus on theory and sometimes lack the systematic coverage of the
techniques involved in developing, deploying, and applying software to real
hardware. Additionally, most hardware platforms for robotics teaching are
low-level toys aimed at younger students at middle-school levels. To address
this gap, an autonomous vehicle hardware platform, called F1TENTH, is developed
for teaching autonomous systems hands-on. This article describes the teaching
modules and software stack for teaching at various educational levels with the
theme of "racing" and competitions that replace exams. The F1TENTH vehicles
offer a modular hardware platform and its related software for teaching the
fundamentals of autonomous driving algorithms. From basic reactive methods to
advanced planning algorithms, the teaching modules enhance students'
computational thinking through autonomous driving with the F1TENTH vehicle. The
F1TENTH car fills the gap between research platforms and low-end toy cars and
offers hands-on experience in learning the topics in autonomous systems. Four
universities have adopted the teaching modules for their semester-long
undergraduate and graduate courses for multiple years. Student feedback is used
to analyze the effectiveness of the F1TENTH platform. More than 80% of the
students strongly agree that the hardware platform and modules greatly motivate
their learning, and more than 70% of the students strongly agree that the
hardware-enhanced their understanding of the subjects. The survey results show
that more than 80% of the students strongly agree that the competitions
motivate them for the course.
