Video tutorials

This video tutorial is part of the series on how to make your robot 100% precise and accurate. We accomplish the Emergency Walk mission 10 out of 10 times. The attachment works. Every time the attachment is started in successfully accomplishes the mission and this is one of the most difficult missions on FIRST LEGO League competitions ever. 

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.

Here is Lintu. It is a marvelous LEGO Mindstorms EV3 Animal robot that looks like Kiwi, the famous New Zealand bird. It is quite rare to see a Kiwi bird in person. But fear not, we've prepare a robot that looks almost exactly like the original.

On the topic of following lines with a robot there is a way to make the robot follow the line a little more precisely. This method is called "Multi-states" program. Or at least we call it like this. In this tutorial you will see how we program 5 state for the robot line following program. This could be particularly important with FIRST LEGO League competitions where we must build consistent and reliable robots.

Here is Comet. It is a fast LEGO Mindstorms EV3 Car robot that looks like F1 Racing Car. We've especially designed it to be controlled with the remote control to make it extremelly easy to download the program and start playing with the robot. It also has the option to "press the pedal" (increase the speed) with just the remote control. Check it out.

With this 10 runs we demonstrate the consistency and reliability that could be achieved with a LEGO Education SPIKE Prime robot and a 2-states simple line following algorithm. It is not bad. Still there are some things you should consider when using this program and one of the things is the use of the timers

Here is Turtle - a LEGO Mindstorms EV3 robot that is designed to look like a sea turtle (may look clumsy but it's not). It has two sensors - ultrasonic and gyro, capable of following its course and navigating through anything. It can even get "angry", if you annoy it too much.

In this video tutorial we demonstrate the classic algorithm for following a line with robots. It is widely used in FIRST LEGO League competition and could be applied to LEGO Education SPIKE Prime and to other robots also. The algorithm follows a line by moving to the left and to the right and trying to stay at the edge of a black line.

In this tutorial we demonstrate how a Flip Mission could be accomplished with a Flip Attachment. The robot attachment could be adapted to other flips in FIRST LEGO League/World Robotics Olympiad and other robotics competitions. The principle is the same. The tutorial uses Luly, small LEGO Education SPIKE Prime competition robot with 3D building instructions as a robot base.

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.

We've recently received a number of question on how could the SUV box robot be charged. The answer is simple - you detach the back pane. The question and topic of detaching modules from a robot and attaching them again is really interesting and powerfull and yet not very often implemented in many robots. 

In this video tutorial we use the LEGO Education SPIKE Prime Motion Sensor to reach a mission model on the field. It's a basic use of the motion sensor that we will extend in the next few tutorials and in the same time we take the opportunity to demonstrate what a MyBlock is and how to develop one. As a result of this video you will learn how to make the program easier to read and maintain by organizing the blocks in the program in special MyBlocks that couple them all together.

As we are already off the season we decided to look back at the competition. First, we will take a look at the working solution for FIRST LEGO League 2017 Manhole Cover. This was generally accepted as one of the most difficult missions during the competition. We've built a single attachment to accomplish it. 

(we are releasing the video without explanations and will add the explanations later)

One of the easiest ways to improve the accuracy of LEGO Education SPIKE Prime robots is to use acceleration and deceleration when moving. This also applies to LEGO Mindstorms EV3 and LEGO Mindstorms Robot Inventor and generally to most robots that we know of. This tutorial demonstrates how acceleration and deceleration could be used and what improvement in accuracy and consistency you could expect. This is quite useful for FIRST LEGO League and other robotics competitions.

The after season review continues. No. We are not publishing a single solution for the next season before it is over, but let's learn from the previous season. The current tutorial is about three missions at once on a single run with the robot. Most FIRST LEGO League teams try to accomplish one-two missions on a single run out of the base, and three is really what makes the difference

In this video tutorial we take a look at the consistency of a robot that uses acceleration and deceleration to turn precisely. We use the motion sensor. In 10 consecutive runs we demonstrate what could you expect from the robot when it comes to consistency.

DIfferent wheels and tires will result in different behaviour of the robot. That is actually pretty common sense. The real question is what is the influence. Would the robot make smaller deviations if it has smaller wheels or it will make larger deviations? The tires could also be quite dirty or brand new. Or the wheels could be attached in different ways. 

In this video tutorial we explore acceleration and deceleration and how to make the robot turn precisely by using acceleration and deceleration. The goal is for us to demonstrate a program that turns the robot to 90 degree. In the first 45 the robot is accelerating and in the second 45 it is decelerating.

This LEGO Education SPIKE Prime video tutorial demonstrates the difference in turning slow and turning fast and using the Motion sensor to understand the orientation of the robot. We do 10 consecutive runs. The goal is to understand what can you expect from the robot behavior in terms of consistency.

The LEGO Mindstorms EV3 set comes with two LARGE motors. But even though these motors look almost the same they are not quite the same. There are always some differences in their behaviour. If you have more than two motors, because you bought them or you won them somewhere at a competition, it is worth doing an experiment to find which pair of motors works best. 

Is it better to do fast turns or slow turns? Should you save some time by turning fast or should you be more precise by turning slow. Where is the balance? This video tutorial demonstrates exactly this for LEGO Education SPIKE Prime robot, their motion sensor and an ever occurring question on FIRST LEGO League competition which is how to find the balance and where is the balance.

You could use the LEGO Steel Balls as a third wheel on the robot. It is a caster wheel. But this is steel and as we know from basic existence on this planet, where there is steel there is also rust. The steel ball could get quite rusty and this could have an influence on the behaviour of the robot

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.

Should the robot be with a Front Wheel Drive or a Rear Wheel Drive to make it more precise? The answer is - front wheel will probably give you better results, but the wheel drive is not the most important thing. In this video tutorial on the LEGO Mindstorms Robots, we will do a few experiments to discuss the influence of the wheel drive on the precision of the movement.  

This is the first, but not the last video tutorial of the course where we reach a specific mission model in a consistent way. We use the Motion sensor and only some basic principles like turning to an angle. If we use the principles in this tutorial and then build an attachment for the mission model we will have a pretty consistent way of accomplishing the FIRST LEGO League mission

The balance of the construction of the robot has a great influence on how it will move. This is especially true if you would like to move in a straight line. If the robot is slightly heavier on the right it will move to the right. Here we have two robots - a Five Minute robot and a Box Robot and we will discuss the differences in the constructions and why the box robot is much better than the Five Minute even though it is using the same parts.