Video tutorials

Let's look at what game of life actually is, what are the rules and how to play the game on paper

In this video tutorial we will reach a specific location on the field 10 times. This programs demonstrates the accuracy and consistency of a program that used the Motion Sensor to detect the angle at which the robot rotates. At the end of the tutorial you will have a visual and clear picture of what you could expect from this basic usage in terms of consistency and accuracy. This might be enough for some cases and it might not be enough for others.

Following the Advanced Sensor Calibration course section, it is time to extract the logic for getting a calibrated value into a new block. This block will have an input and on this input, we give the port number. The block will return the calibrated value for this port number. We've built all the other blocks only because of this almost final video here.

In this video lesson, we will show you how to build a menu as a MyBlock in LEGO Mindstorms NXG-G. Having a menu is a must at robotics competitions since it saves time and gives easy access to program functionalities.

In this episode of the Basic NXT Programming series I will cover the sound sensor. I will explain how to program the sound sensor, stop on common problems faced, when the sound sensor is used and finally we will build a program that will allow us to control the robot's speed through the volume of the sound.

In this video tutorial we take a next step in programming reliable and consistent robots and this is to learn how to stop at a second intersection. We need this because most of the time when we want to reach a mission model on a robotics competition field, the model will be located away from us and we must use all kind of technique to reach it. In this tutorial - we stop at a second intersection.

Now that we know how to make the robot move forward let's see we can make it move backward. 

One of the interesting things in this sequence of videos is the program. The program detects when the system has reached the maximum speed and then stops the motor from rotating. We detect this with the EV3-G software

With the set for the course, you also have an SD card. It is important that you understand why and how is the SD Card is used. 

We use a sensor so the robot must be reliable and accurate right? Wrong. The robot is not reliable and accurate only because we use sensors and that's really important during FIRST LEGO League competition. There is a reason for this and in this tutorial we demonstrate and explain how the robot behaves with a basic use of the Motion Sensor to move straight. As a result you will learn why is it important not to stop at this stage and to go to the next level with more advance use of sensors.

In this tutorial, we show you how to display all the values from an EV3-G array on the EV3 brick display. We are using an array Read Operation along with a loop. We are also detecting the loop counter and using it as an index to an array. It's basically the only viable way to do it. The process is commonly referred to as - "Iteration over an array" (although we still do not have an iterator in the programming language, we promise that one day we would do the super advance videos on "iteration" using the LEGO MINDSTORMS robots")  

With this video tutorial, we start with Turns with the VEX EDR robot. 

In the EV3-G software, you could use negative numbers for power and rotations. In this episode, we would look at what is the meaning of this numbers and make a few notes of where the teacher must be more careful.

In the RobotC software we could make the robot wait for a couple of seconds by using the wait function. This will give the motors a chance to work and this will actually move the robot. 

In this episode we combine in a single program the previous two programs for moving forward and backward. 

In this tutorial, I will cover the adjustments of the display and the color lamp blocks from the LEGO Mindstorms NXT-G. Today I will show you how to use the color lamp in order to make your robot more interesting or how to display sensors values or try to draw something on the screen of the brick.

We are ready to build the first program for moving the robot forward and backward. We learn how to build simple programs for moving the program. But it is not that easy...downloading to the robot does not always result in the robot moving. 

In this video tutorial we follow a line 10 consecutive times. In this way we demonstrate whats the consistency that you could expect from the robot when following a line with a multi-states algorithm.

To prepare the robot to move in a square and to use a loop in the program we would first make this VEX EDR robot move forward and turn, using a program developed with RobotC.

To control the VEX Cortex controller we must use a software. In this episode we would download the software from the VEX site. Strange thing is that you must select your region correctly even if you are not in this region

In this 10 out of 10 tutorials we do 10 runs that demonstrated how consistent and reliable it is to stop at the second intersection. This is useful as it is one of the main ways to figure out how to position yourself on the field.

Spinning with the VEX EDR robot involves the use of both motors. The left and the right. Every robot with wheels could spin and this makes not exceptions.

When aligning backward the robot is still very consistent. It does not matter the direction in which we align. What you will learn from this tutorial is what is the consistency and reliability of the robot that you could expect.

Where is the math while turning? Is there any math involved? Should there be?

The next important step when turning with a robot is to learn how to do an Arc turn.

In this tutorial we demonstrate how accurate the robot is when we are moving it slow vs when moving it fast. The point of the tutorial is to show that moving slowly is generally much more accurate. It is not accurate enough for a FIRST LEGO League competition, but if you have to move without the use of the sensors you can at least move slow.

In this tutorial, we would build a simple program for controlling the Tetrix robot motors with the GamePads. We use the stick and when the stick is pushed forward the motors move forward. When it is pushed backwards the robot moves backwards.