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One of the hardest things to do to create an autonomous routine is capturing the moves. Most of the time it’s trial and error creating an outline of the code and filling in distances and degree turns. You can measure distances to help, but the turns are a problem. Along with lifting arms in the right locations.

This process was developed by Turbodog and announced on the the VEXIQ forum. The setup gives you the ability to make 1″ moves forward and backwards and to turn 5 or 10 degrees to the right and left. By keeping track of the moves, you can piece together the full routine.

This method assumes that you are using the Modkit setup either on a PC or iPad

You need to configure your robot, in the example assume the drive base and two motors lifting the arm.

1) Change the drive train settings for your wheel types, track width (how far apart the wheels are side to side) and the wheelbase (how far apart are the wheels from front to back)

2) In the brain section you are going to write

when Start
do forever
clearLCD
newline
print “Left/right motor degree”
print (armleft) rotation in (deg)
print ( ) // this is a few space characters to space the numbers out
print (armleft) rotation in (deg)
end forever

3) In the controller blocks you want to put a series of these:

when controller-button-E up-pressed
broadcast forward1

when controller-button-E down-pressed
broadcast backward1

when controller-button-L up-pressed
broadcast left10

when controller-button-L down-pressed
broadcast left5

when controller-button-R up-pressed
broadcast right10

when controller-button-R down-pressed
broadcast right5

when controller-button-F up-pressed
broadcast armup

when controller-button-F down-pressed
broadcast armdown

when controller-button-F up-released
broadcast armstop

when controller-button-F down-released
broadcast armstop

 

4) And then in the motor for the arm you need to add

when start
set holding to on
set velocity to 50%

when armup
spin FWD

when armdown
spin REV

when armstop
stop

 

5) finally in the drive base motors

when start
set drive speed to 50%
set turn speed to 50%

when forward1
drive FWD 1 in

when backward1
drive REV 1 in

when left5
turn LEFT 5 deg

when left10
turn LEFT 10 deg

when right5
turn RIGHT 5 deg

when right10
turn RIGHT 10 deg

when drivestop
stop

You can now run the robot, single steps at a time to move forward, backwards, turn left and right. As you position the arm you can read the angles off of the display on the back. You need to remember as you start each run to make sure the arm is in the same starting position.

When you convert to the final routine you can add things together. So you can move 8″ vs making eight 1″ movements.

Link to a video tutorial

Good luck!!

Nine current teams and a few groups that are interested in VEX robotics came to the first Annual Delaware Technical and Community College Winter Workshop on 19 January at the Dover “Terry” Campus.

Jim Crane from RECF did an overview of VEX Competition robotics. He then went into a in-dept look at the 2018/19 VRC game “Turning Point”. Existing teams then split off to polish programs and make last minute hardware tweeks in preparation for some matches.

The other roboteers got an introduction to VEX parts, then played a round of “freeze tag” with robots. Each robot has a button on the front and back, when touched, the robot freezes. When touched again they start back up and can try to go and freeze another robot.

Jillian Whitney, the host for the event, ran scrimmages for the teams. The scrimmage was in a “grab and go” format, as teams are ready to drive they grab their robot and go get in the queue for the next match. 14 matches were played. High score for the day was 26. A number of teams had viable autonomous routines.

Just before lunch, Foster Schucker from STEM Robotics gave an overview on what STEM Robotics does and how Delmarvarobotics is set up.

The award for “Most Matches Played” went to a team from Reading Middle School, they played in all but one of the matches. Even with all those matches, they were able to make minor repairs and even do a wheel upgrade.

Eight teams from three of the Delaware Technical and Community College campuses played in the DTCC Winter Classic sponsored by AT&T. The event was the culmination of DTCC Robotics Academy Program.

Teams were:

8 – Bound Bots – Wilmington
7 – Ultimate – Wilmington
6 – Fusion Robotics – Wilmington
5 – Akinators – Wilmington
4 – The Kingsmen – Terry (Dover)
3 – The Acers – Terry (Dover)
2 – Kolala-fication – Owens (Georgetown)
1 – A.C.C.D.G – Owens (Georgetown)

After 22 Qualification matches, the Elimination part of the tournament started. Lots of great matches in the Semifinals, with a 34 point tie. The best of 3 format had both Semifinals going to three matches.

In the end the #1 alliance of Ultimate and Akinators winning the close score finals against A.C.C.D.G and Kolala-fication.

Guest Judges for the event were from Penfield Robotics, Penfield NY and the local area. The professional engineers from GM had great conversations with the roboteers about the robot design, strategy and what their plans were for improving the robots.

The Kingsmen won the Judges award for their very detailed Engineering Notebook.

Ultimate was the Excellence Award winner with their outstanding performance (#1 Seed, Tournament Winner and top marks in their interview). They will attend the Turning Point at Caesar Rodney

Robotics Academy at Delaware Tech

AT&T awarded Delaware Tech for the fall Robotics Academy where 45 high school students from 16 Delaware high schools statewide learned about STEM-based concepts while being exposed to a college campus environment. Students worked in teams to execute an engineering design, build a robot, and solve new challenges they faced along the way. Students persevered through prototyping and design iteration to execute the robot that will compete today. The Academy focused on using a myriad of disciplines such as science, math, programming, and engineering. By working in teams, students enhanced lifelong soft skills such as teamwork, leadership, and communication. In addition students had the opportunity to hear from local experts such as the Chief Roboteer from STEM Robotics, virtually connect with a coding company across the country, or tour a local facility to learn about the industry needs and how robotics are pivotal in the world today.

The Game Design Committees of both the VRC and VIQ competitions released the August editions of the games. Since the game release at Worlds this Spring, 1000’s of roboteers have been looking at the rules and asking questions. This update does some clarifications and adds some great examples.

VEX IQ – Next Level

Next Level is a stacking game, teams have one minute minute to stack spools and then hang.

Next Level Game Manual

VEX VRC – Turning Point

Turning point is a fast paced shooting game, with a battle at the end for the parking space.

Turning Point Game Manual

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These are the manuals you should be following until the next rules update later this winter.

Tonight at the Brandywine Hundred Library we were in a few groups doing different things. One group was learning to drive the robot and practicing picking and moving objects.

My group was programming and tonight we were working on the Sonar Sensor. Make the robot move until it’s 100mm away from an object. Stop, turn the RGB light red. Wait until there was no obstruction and move again.

They were practicing with one of the spools when the other group’s robot cut in front of them. Our robot came to a stop and the team goes “Hey, we made a crash proof car!”. I think it’s very cool that they made a real world translation to what we did with the robot.

Just wondering, when we were doing a similar example back in 2009 if our roboteers had the same though? Wonder if some of them are working on self driving (and more importantly self stopping!) cars.

We’ll be using last nights code in our robot build. Move towards the spool, stop when it’s the right distance to pick it up. Pick it up, unblocking the sensor, the robot can now move towards the stack. When it gets at the stack it will stop, it’s the right distance to put the held spool on the pile. A case of the robot knowing where it is and prompting the driver on what to do next.

But until then we have a crash proof robot!