Everything PATCH understands, exactly as the game implements it: the drone commands, the crop readings, the Python each mission teaches, and the thirty-mission ladder that strings them together.
PATCH always acts on the tile it is hovering over. Every command is a function call — name, parentheses, and sometimes one argument in quotes.
drone.move("north" | "south" | "east" | "west")Flies PATCH one tile in a compass direction. The farm has edges — route around them.
drone.move("east")
drone.move("east")
drone.water()common slip: passing "up" or "left" — PATCH only knows "north", "south", "east" and "west", in quotes.
drone.water()Soaks the crop on the tile PATCH is hovering over, topping up its moisture.
moisture = drone.scan_moisture()
if moisture < 30:
drone.water()common slip: watering bare soil — "there's no crop here to water. Move PATCH onto a crop first."
drone.scan_moisture()Reads the moisture of the crop under PATCH. Empty soil reads 0.
moisture = drone.scan_moisture()
dry = moisture < 30common slip: leaving off the parentheses — drone.scan_moisture is a command, so call it: drone.scan_moisture().
drone.scan_crop()Names the crop under PATCH — like "tomato" — or "none" over empty soil.
crop = drone.scan_crop()
if crop == "tomato":
drone.water()drone.scan_ready()True only when a crop is here and ripe enough to pick — the safety check before every harvest.
ready = drone.scan_ready()
if ready:
drone.harvest()drone.scan_battery()Reads PATCH's battery level, seeded per mission. Low power means it's time to head home.
battery = drone.scan_battery()
if battery < 20:
drone.return_base()drone.harvest()Picks the ripe crop under PATCH and clears the tile for replanting.
ready = drone.scan_ready()
if ready:
drone.harvest()common slip: picking green — "this crop isn't ready to harvest yet. Check drone.scan_ready() before harvesting."
drone.plant("tomato")Plants a seed on the empty soil under PATCH. The argument is the crop's name, in quotes.
drone.move("south")
drone.plant("tomato")common slip: planting on a full tile — "there's already a crop here. Find empty soil to plant on."
drone.skip()Deliberately leaves this crop alone. Mission goals notice restraint — skipping a healthy crop counts.
moisture = drone.scan_moisture()
if moisture < 30:
drone.water()
else:
drone.skip()drone.return_base()Flies PATCH straight home to its charging pad from anywhere on the farm.
battery = drone.scan_battery()
if battery < 20:
drone.return_base()In the landing playground, drone.scan() hands back the whole crop as one value. A scanned crop has exactly three attributes:
crop = drone.scan()
if crop.moisture < 60:
drone.water()Over empty soil, scan() returns None — and None has no .moisture. PATCH will tell you so: “that tile was empty soil (None), so there is no .moisture”.
In the full game the readings are split into their own commands — scan_moisture(), scan_crop(), scan_ready() and scan_battery() — so each mission can introduce exactly one idea.
No imports, no boilerplate — just the constructs that make a drone smart, one card each.
A name that remembers a value. Scan first, decide second.
moisture = drone.scan_moisture()
if moisture < 30:
drone.water()Run code only when a condition is true — with fallbacks.
moisture = drone.scan_moisture()
if moisture < 30:
drone.water()
elif moisture < 60:
drone.skip()
else:
drone.return_base()Repeat a block a fixed number of times — one pass per crop in the row.
for i in range(3):
drone.water()
drone.move("east")Repeat while a condition stays true. Mind the step budget below.
crop = drone.scan()
while crop.moisture < 60:
drone.water()
crop = drone.scan()< > <= >= == != turn readings into True/False decisions.
battery = drone.scan_battery()
if battery <= 20:
drone.return_base()Combine conditions: both, either, opposite.
ready = drone.scan_ready()
moisture = drone.scan_moisture()
if ready and moisture > 50:
drone.harvest()Write to the run log — PATCH thinking out loud.
crop = drone.scan()
print(crop.type, crop.moisture)Cards marked “playground” run in this site's in-browser interpreter today; the in-game missions stick to the rest, with while and print joining in a later world. Cards marked “full game” read the farm with PATCH's split scans — scan_moisture(), scan_ready(), scan_battery() — which the playground trades for a single drone.scan(): it knows move, water, harvest, plant and scan, and answers anything else with an error. Those examples are for the game, which is why they carry no run link.
Thirty missions, thirty concepts, in the order the game teaches them. Each hands you a farm problem that exactly one new idea solves.
Every run spends battery: the game halts a script after 10,000 interpreter steps, and the landing playground after 400. No honest script gets close — only a loop that never ends will hit the guard.
✖ PATCH ran too many steps — is there a loop that never ends?PATCH never dumps a stack trace on you. Every error names its line, says what went wrong in plain words, and points at the next thing to try:
> drone.harvest()
✖ line 1: this crop isn't ready to harvest yet.
Check drone.scan_ready() before harvesting.