You probably know that every year we're releasing a Solutions and Review course for the missions of FIRST LEGO League competitions challenges. This year the situation with the competition is a bit different, but here we are - sitting here, acting kinda normal, figuring out what robot should we build to accomplish every mission 10 times in a row.
The FLL season is great, but has one disadvantage - it ends. We have prepared that course for those of you that does not want to stop! The course presents a whole new challenge with custom designed field and mission models, that can be built from just 2 LEGO Mindstorms EV3 sets (core+resource). It is a great way to keep the momentum going after the end of the FLL season and prepare in the best way possible for the next.
After the great success of the previous two Box Robots Courses (Box Robot 1 and Box Robot 2) we are improving the construction even further showing one more way to build Box Robots and to resolve some of the challenges that we all had with the previous robots.
Of course attachments are a great topic of the robots. We show the general way in which one is to build attachments with the Knob Wheels and Gear Wheels mechanisms.
There comes a time when you need to program the robot to "follow a line, but if another sensor detects something you would like to stop, do some work, and then continue following the line". This is applicable to competition robots as it is applicable to real-life robots.
There comes the State Machine Pattern. An advanced and very powerful concept that allows you to easily implement complex robot behaviours with a simple, well-organized, extensible, bug-free program where the robot could be in 1,2, 10 or 100 states and you will still be able to manage the complexity of the world around the robot.
In this course, we would like to introduce you to multi-purpose attachments. These are attachments designed to accomplish a number of missions when the robot goes out of the base in the FIRST LEGO League competitions.
You've all seen them. They are kind of large, powered by a few motors and sometimes use rubber bands, levers and other mechanisms.
Use the course as a preseason preparation and try to solve the tasks to prepare for next year competition. Even if you don't have the field, build the attachments and follow the tasks to inspect their behaviour. Modify them as needed when said.
This is the first draft of the course including only the attachments in different sections. If you are interested in learning more please enrol in the course and in the next few weeks we would try to record the video tutorials.
One of the most controversial topics when it comes to LEGO Mindstorms robots is how to make them move in a straight line. This is a problem that has caused a lot of confusion among teachers, parents, rookie teams and students. The robot makes about 2-3 centimetres error for every meter, which is about an inch for every 3-4 feets. In this course, I would like to discuss the different ways in which you can improve the behaviour of the robot and how you could make it move in a straight line with the help of the LEGO Mindstorms EV3 Gyro Sensor.
The course contains a number of sections with specific examples and tasks on how you could improve your FIRST LEGO League (FLL) robot game in order to achieve more points. It is designed mostly for after season teams that would like to prepare for next year, but could also work for teams that are currently working on their competition robots.
After the first box robot course and its enormous success, we decided to build a second box robot. This time with fewer parts and with only three motors. The EV3 set comes with one medium motor and this robot will be easier for new teams. It is also lighter and more simple. Take the course and learn the ideas that we have in mind in simplifying a robot. Use this course with students and try to experiment to make the attachments and construction even simpler.
Robotics competitions with LEGO Mindstorms robots are very popular. One of the more popular types of robot constructions that are build for such competitions are the so-called "Box Robots". In this course we are gathering a series of videos on this box robots along with building instructions and recommendations of improvements.
This course if used by teams, mentors and students to structure the preparation for the Robotics Game of the FIRST LEGO League Robotics Competitions. One thing that is common each year at FLL is that experience matters a lot. Our goal with this course is to quickly bring new teams up to speed with experienced teams and to share some new tricks, patterns, constructions with the more experienced teams.
These are a couple of structured examples and tutorials of how the missions for FIRST LEGO League 2015 Trash Trek competition could be accomplished. We've gathered recordings and explanations from which students and teacher can learn a lot. There are missions and attachment for dropping, carabiner, loops and other interesting and challenging robotics missions from the competition.
These are a couple of structured examples and tutorials of how the missions for FIRST LEGO League 2014 Word class competition could be accomplished. We've gathered recordings and explanations from which students and teacher can learn a lot. There are missions and attachment for rubber bands, lifting with rubber bands, throwing and other interesting and challenging robotics missions from the competition.
These are a couple of structured examples and tutorials of how the missions for FIRST LEGO League (FLL) 2013 Nature's Fury competition could be accomplished. We've gathered recordings and explanations from which students and teacher can learn a lot. There are rubber bands, lifting attachments and a lot of trucks that we are pulling and pushing at this robotics competition.