Yellow Belt: Mobile App Development
Mobile App Development in Wellesley
Concept to a published app — on a real phone, with their name on it.
- Boston Parents Family Favorite seven years running
- Macaroni Kids Favorite 2026
- FIRST LEGO League & VEX Judges Award
- State finalists, FLL & VEX
- STEM.org accredited
- CSTA & NGSS aligned
Not a drop-in coding club. A ten-month program with a cohort, a competition team, and a monthly report that shows you exactly what your child built and why it mattered.
What your child leaves with
A portfolio
Working apps, games, robots and websites they built themselves — not a certificate of attendance. Everything is saved to their own profile.
A team
The route into our VEX and FIRST LEGO League competition teams, with a real season, a capped roster and tournament results.
A transcript
A written report every month explaining what they covered, the concept behind it, and what comes next. A fuller one at the end of each belt.
Yellow Belt · iCode of Wellesley2026/27 year
Mobile App Development — the Yellow Belt
- Time
- Two hours a week, same day and time, across the ten-month program
- Group size
- Around six students to one instructor
- Length
- Ten months to complete a belt. Most students go on to the next one. 80 hours of instruction across the year.
- Start dates
- New cohorts in September, November, January and April. Seats are capped.
- Stage
- Typically ages 9 and up
- Entry
- After a first programming belt. Placement by evaluation.
- Reports
- A written report every month, and a fuller one at the end of each belt — see a real one
- Location
- 73 Central Street, Wellesley
See Yellow Belt class times
Book a free evaluation
Not sure this is the right belt? The free evaluation exists to answer exactly that — we place by what a student can do, never by age alone.
The moment that makes this belt work is small and completely reliable: a student installs the thing they built on their own phone, and hands it to a parent. Nothing else we teach lands quite like it.
Getting there means C# and XML in Visual Studio with .NET MAUI — the same stack a working developer would reach for, not a toy builder. Students handle data, call real APIs, and finish the year having launched something.
What students actually learn
- C# and XML — a professional language and a real IDE
- .NET MAUI for cross-platform mobile development
- App design principles and interface layout
- Data handling, storage and working with APIs
- Product thinking — who the app is for and why they would open it twice
The year, sprint by sprint
The Yellow Belt runs in sprints across the school year, each one building on the last and ending in a final project.
- Introduction to App Development
- App Design Principles of XML
- Game Creation in C#
- Midterm
- Data Handling and Management
- Working with APIs
- Creative Entrepreneurship and Marketing
- Product Development
- Final Project
What they finish with
- A customized app of their own design
- A launched mobile application
You will know exactly what your child learned
Most parents six weeks into a coding class cannot say what their child has actually learned. A written report arrives every month: the topics covered, the concept behind each one in plain language, what your child actually built, where they found it easy and where they had to push, an instructor’s specific observation, and what is coming next. At the end of the belt there is a longer completion report — the whole ten months as a narrative, the skills portfolio, the capstone, and the natural next step.
The competition team runs alongside it
Our VEX and FIRST LEGO League teams are not a separate Saturday activity. A team place runs parallel to the belt, so the season feeds the same progress record — the robot goes in the portfolio and the season goes on the transcript. Rosters are capped and we hold the cap.
- Entry — FIRST LEGO League Explore · VEX IQ intro. Grades 2–4, About 16 weeks, 1.5 hours a week.
- Core — FIRST LEGO League Challenge · VEX IQ competitive. Grades 4–8, About 20 weeks, two hours a week.
- Advanced — VEX V5. Grades 8–12, About 20 weeks, two hours a week, eight students to one coach.
A place is conditional on being an enrolled student, and tryouts run in September. See the teams, rosters and season dates.
The question parents actually ask
“Will they actually publish it, or is that marketing?”
They build a working, installable app — that part is not negotiable and it happens every year. Publishing to a public store involves developer accounts and your consent, so we treat that as your decision rather than a promise we make on your behalf. Either way your child finishes with software that runs on a phone.
If it is not working
Four sessions — about a month — then decide.
If your child is not engaged after four sessions, tell us and we refund the balance and release the seat.
How this differs from a club
A club is one hour a week for ten weeks, in a larger group, on a single topic — a good way to start and a good second activity. The Belt Program is two hours a week across a ten-month year, in a group of about six, with a written progress report every month and a capstone project. It is the deeper commitment and the one most families end up in. See the clubs if you would rather start smaller.
If two hours a week is too much right now
Studio — One hour a week, ongoing. A flexible, AI-driven path with its own milestones, supervised by an instructor. The on-ramp for families who cannot give us two hours a week yet. Students move across to a belt when they are ready. It is a different product rather than a shorter belt, which is what keeps the belt itself meaning the same thing for every student who finishes one.
Questions
Is this iPhone or Android?
.NET MAUI is cross-platform, so what they build targets both from one codebase. That is much of why we chose it.
Do they need to know C# first?
No. The belt starts at the introduction to app development and builds the language as it goes. Prior experience with any typed language makes the first month easier.
Is a Mac or a specific phone needed at home?
No. Everything is built in the center on our machines. A phone to install onto is useful but not required.
Where you’ll be
iCode of Wellesley · 73 Central Street, Wellesley, MA 02482
781-291-3131
Five minutes from Wellesley Middle School and a short drive from Schofield, Bates, Hardy, Hunnewell and Upham. Street parking on Central Street, plus the Municipal Way lot behind the building for pickup.
Ready to start?
Book a free evaluation and we will tell you honestly which belt your child belongs in — or go straight to the Yellow Belt class times.
Book a free evaluation
See Yellow Belt class times
The ten belts, in order
Students move up the ladder as they are ready, not on a timetable. Most join partway up — the free evaluation is how we work out where.
- Junior Belt — Junior STEAM
- Foundation Belt — Scratch Coding & AI Foundations
- White Belt — Robotics, VEX & 3D Printing
- Gray Belt — Minecraft & Roblox Coding
- Orange Belt — Web Development & Design
- Yellow Belt — Mobile App Development — you are here
- Green Belt — Python, Drones & AI
- Red Belt — Game Development
- Blue Belt — Networking & Cybersecurity
- Black Belt — Java & AP Computer Science
