Video tutorials

We continue the discussion of the Robot Design category from the FIRST LEGO League Competition. This time we stop on the programming - how to evaluate the programming of the team during its preparation for the competition.

The FIRST LEGO League Competition is divided in four categories. The Robot Design category is not as popular as the Robot Game, but still is 25% of the end result of a team. In this tutorial we will stop and make an overview of it.

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.

In the first part we built our first 3D LEGO model. Today we will smooth the model we have created and go through the process of creating PDF instructions for building it.

In this tutorial we will build our first 3D LEGO model using LDraw. I will build it using two different programs based on the LDraw library - MLCAD and LeoCAD.

Learn how to set up LDD and Ldraw on your Windows computer. Get one step closer to building your first 3D LEGO Model.

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 episode I will show you how to program the touch sensor part of the LEGO Mindstorms education robotics sets. I have given answers to questions like - how the touch sensor works or how you can use it.

In this episode we are showing the great similiarity between the sensors in NXT Mindstorms. We are solving a common problem - How to make a robot that do not fall from the table. We are using the Ultrasonic sensor, Light Sensor and Touch Sensor to solve the same problem, but with three different sensors.

Robotics competition is a large part of the FLL Competition. The field contains missions which give points and the main purpose is to gather maximum number of points for 2:30min. FIRST LEGO League competitions have different themes every year but the tasks have similar functionality. In this video tutorial we will give a brief of missions in Senior Solutions (the theme for 2012).

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.

During the FIRST LEGO League competition you can hardly use the sound block, because of the noise from the excitement around the tables, but it has a few interesting applications. I this video lesson I will show you how to use the sound block and build a program that makes the robot say which color it sees.

If you look at the properties of the move block and the motor block LEGO Mindstorms NXT, you will see that they have much in common. Still they have several differences. You should be aware of these differences in order to choose the appropriate block for your needs.

Starting leJOS might be very problematic, since you need to install a few libraries and make some configurations. In this video tutorial I am showing a step-by-step guide on how you could install leJOS on your Ubuntu Linux. And it is quite easy.

In this video tutorial we will show you three ways for making your robot stable on the field. We will present each one of them with their advantages and disadvantages - it's up to you to choose which one is the best for your case.

In this lesson I would like to show you how to build a LEGO Mindstorms competition robot and tell you how we have designed the construction used in the videos so far. Surely it isn’t perfect, but it is a good start.

To win the FLL robotics competition you should surely use light sensors for navigating on the field. But the performance of the light sensors is affected by the surrounding light which means you might get different results on the training and on the competition table. This is where calibration is useful. In this video I will show you an easy way to do calibration along with a few examples.

This is not the standard video lesson. We have always wanted to just destroy the field and see how easy it would be. We would prepare a detailed lesson in the next few months, but this was one of the first tries on completely destroying the FIRST LEGO League Seniour Solutions field.

This is a fun video with robots doing the Harlem Shake. We thought about posting the programs for the robots, but actually the whole Harlem Shake is so awkward that we decided not to do it :) Enjoy the video

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.

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. 

In this video I am building the five minute robot from LEGO Mindstorms and I am doing a short introduction on how to make the robot move forward and turn around. Throught this series I will be using mostly NXT-G as a programming environment.