Video tutorials

This video tutorial focuses on accomplishing M05 Angler Fish, M09 Unexpected Encounter, M10 Send over the Submersible, and M11 Sonar Discovery of the FIRST LEGO League 2024-2025 SUBMERGED Challenge using the Nautiq box robot (a LEGO Education SPIKE Prime robot). The run uses three attachments in sequence: an aligning attachment at the start to reduce initial inaccuracies, a front attachment for solving M05 and M10 while collecting krill, reef segments, and the water sample, and a back attachment for solving M11, delivering the unknown creature for M09, and collecting plankton and seabed samples.

The front attachment is particularly interesting in this configuration because it integrates two color sensors and one motor directly onto the attachment itself. These sensors are used to align the robot to the black line near M10, while the aligning attachment at the start ensures a precise launch position.

This version of the big run takes on significantly more missions in a single attempt than a standard sequence, which naturally comes at the cost of reduced accuracy. In the current FLL competition format—where only your best score from three attempts is counted—this trade-off can be highly strategic. A run that works perfectly even just once can yield a massive point boost, making this kind of high-reward, lower-consistency approach a potential game-changer for teams willing to take the risk.

In a competition environment like the FIRST LEGO League (FLL) or World Robotics Olympiad (WRO) the color sensor is more than useful. It makes positioning on the field quite easy and precise. 

This video tutorial focuses on accomplishing M10 Send Over the Submersible of the FIRST LEGO League 2024-2025 SUBMERGED Challenge using the Nautiq box robot. In this series of test runs, the goal is to achieve 10 out of 10 successful deliveries where the submersible reaches the opposing field, and the robot disengages without touching the mission model at the match’s end.

The run uses a simple pinless attachment with stopping beams for consistent positioning, combined with programming that integrates a parallel timer for perfect match-end execution. This setup gives the robot the highest possible success rate for both mission requirements across repeated trials.

Looking at the field we must first think of a strategy of solving this line following problem. There are rules that the robot must follow and these rules should be programmed in the robot. 

This video tutorial focuses on accomplishing M10 Send Over the Submersible of the FIRST LEGO League 2024-2025 SUBMERGED Challenge using the Nautiq box robot (a LEGO Education SPIKE Prime robot). The run uses a simple pinless attachment that engages with the front gearwheel of the robot to raise the yellow slider. Built-in stopping beams ensure the attachment always starts from the same position for consistent operation.

This minimalistic but reliable design allows the robot to perform the lift with stability and repeatability, making it well-suited for a time-sensitive mission. The attachment’s simplicity also enables quick setup between runs, keeping it competition-ready.

Positioning your MINDSTORM robot precisely on the FIRST LEGO League competition field is one of the first things you should learn while preparing. In this video tutorial, we will show three different attachments you could use when aligning to the walls of the competition table. We will show other ways and attachments in some of the next videos.

This video tutorial focuses on accomplishing M11 Sonar Discovery and M12 Feed the Whale of the FIRST LEGO League 2024-2025 SUBMERGED Challenge using the Nautiq box robot. The goal is to achieve 10 out of 10 successful completions, with the robot reliably rotating the sonar and feeding the whale in every trial.

The run uses a combined two-part attachment where the front section opens the whale’s mouth and drops the krill while the rear section uses a chain and hook mechanism to rotate the sonar. The programming ensures precise timing, correct hook positioning, and a small forward adjustment to avoid snagging, enabling consistent results across all attempts.

The robot uses one middle motor. This middle motor with the use of a few gear systems controls for different axsels. We have attached wheels on this axles so it is very easy to extend the robot construction for additional LEGO Mindstorms active attachments

This video tutorial focuses on accomplishing M11 Sonar Discovery and M12 Feed the Whale of the FIRST LEGO League 2024-2025 SUBMERGED Challenge using the Nautiq box robot (a LEGO Education SPIKE Prime robot). The run uses a combined two-part attachment for maximum efficiency. The front section is designed to drop the krill into the Whale for M12, using a stationary beam to open the whale’s mouth and an angled beam to tip the krill container so they fall inside. Wheels are added as counterweights to prevent the container from opening during movement.

The rear section operates the sonar rotation for M11, using a chain-driven mechanism to transfer power from the robot to the mission model. A hooked beam is integrated at the end, allowing it to easily catch the yellow part of the sonar for rotation. This combined design allows the robot to complete both missions in one smooth, coordinated run without swapping attachments.

Use the color sensor to count the lines and stop on the third line. We do not use the wait block for this.

Based on your feedback we've build a course for introducing new students to the LEGO Mindstorms EV3 programming and construction. It is designed for school groups, competition teams and students alone in home that can get our feedback on their progress

Counting lines and stopping on the third is the subject of this video. It is important to know how to do this in order to conduct more than one experiment in STEM classes (if we consider that each line is an experiment)

Recap on the attachments, their purpose and how you should use them. 

The robot attachment build in this tutorial gives an idea on how to release a rubber band at a specific moment using a motor. It's a simple, but yet powerful technique on using rubber bands. 

The 90-degree turn of the robot is different from 90-degree turn of the motor!

In this video we discuss part of the pinless attachments build by the ELM team. Without pinless attachment it is nearly impossible to achieve a good score at the FIRST LEGO League competition. 

This video tutorial reviews the EV3 Gyro Sensor and the HiTechnic Gyro Sensor for the LEGO Mindstorms NXT robotics Kit. We compare the two sensors and demonstrate them in action.

The program from part 3 should be refactored and improved to make it easier to understand and support. We extract most of the repeatable behaviours in a loop and this reduces the size of the program three times in terms of the number of blocks used. 

In this episode we continue from Episode 55 and we improve the durability and stability of the attachment for a LEGO Mindstorms EV3 robot. Many times attachments are not very stable which results in gaps between parts. The goal of the video is to give basic construction ideas.

In this video we are showing how to use two light sensors to do basic aligning on a black line. This is always needed at the competitions. We also show an example for following a line with two sensors. 

This is where the confusion really comes. We are keeping the robot orientation straight while the robot moves, but at the end the, robot is not at the fiinal location that we would like it to be. The robot is still about 2-3 centimeters away after moving for about a meter.

Here is Mintonet. The robot is created to be used in pairs, but you can also build just one and practice your shooting with a box. The robot works with plastic balls between 5 and 7 cm. Using the ultrasonic sensor it can detect either its partner or a box and then it shoots. How many balls can you score?

Tasks for introduction on building robots.

Try to add a touch sensor to the robot on your own.

As the name indicates, ultrasonic sensors measure distance by using ultrasonic waves. One of the “eyes” on the sensor head is the transmitter and emits an ultrasonic wave and the other “eye” is the receiver which receives the wave reflected back from the target. 

Rubber bands can be quite powerful. Based on several requests from you we are starting a series on using the LEGO Rubber bands available in the Mindstorms set. 

In this video we are solving one of the most important challenges on the FIRST LEGO League competition, i.e how to cover your Mindstorms NXT light sensors so that they are not affected by outer light sources at the day of the competition. Once again you would find 3 solutions and more will come in the next videos.