Video tutorials

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

In this video tutorial we look at Acceleration and Deceleration with a LEGO Education SPIKE Prime robot. The goal of the tutorial is to demonstrate the accuracy of the robot when we us default acceleration and slow acceleration.

In this video tutorial we demonstrate the use of the motion sensor and how it could be use to turn precisely to 90 degrees. We demonstrate some of the caveats of the sensor and how sometimes it does not work as expected. Like you set the robot to turn until the sensors detects 90 degrees and at the end the robot is not at exactly 90 degrees.

This videos tutorials demonstrated the robot accuracy in 10 runs one after the other. 5 of them are with the robot moving slow and 5 are with the robot moving fast. See for your self what is the accuracy achieved only with the move blocks of the robot.

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.

This video tutorial demonstrates the accuracy and consistency of the robot behavior when we use only the blocks for moving the robot without any sensor. Spoiler alert - the robot is not consistent and it is not accurate.

In this video tutorial we start with the basic of the basic, eg. how to move. We use the block from LEGO Education SPIKE Prime Word Blocks software. It is based on Scratch. The goal of the tutorial is to demonstrate how we can move and to teach something very important - the robot moves inaccurately

Programming the LEGO MINDSTORMS Robot Inventor for FIRST LEGO League competitions involves learning how to turn left and right with the robot. There are not precise turns. The robot will make mistakes, because that's what robots do. But nevertheless it is important to learn how to program the robot to turn. We are releasing an additional course that is focused only on programming and how to make the robot consistent in its behavior, but in this tutorial we stop on turning

With this video tutorial we start the course for LEGO MINDSTORMS Robot Inventor and how to successfully program the robot for FIRST LEGO League robotics competition. It is good to have SPIKE Prime or EV3 for the competition. But if you happen to have Robot Inventor, don't be discourage. It is still possible to participate and accomplish a lot with the set.

If this is the first time you are using an "if" check block, watch the following video.

Detecting direction using the camera in Scratch is a very useful tool for controlling our sprite using movement. Now you will learn how it functions and how to use it!

Scratch is a very good platform for you to start learning to program. Here's how you can start and what you need to know for your initial orientation.

Football with robots could be quite fun. Football with LEGO Mindstorms robots is one of the popular categories for competitions with LEGO Mindstorms Robots. 

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 should multiply the error by a certain number and then add it to the steering of the LEGO Mindstorms Steering block. In this way, by changing the coefficient we change how much/fast should the proportional part influence the steering of the robot. 

After we take each sample, we perform calculations and these calculations could take different time. It is important to know how much time does it take to perform the calculations. In this video tutorial, we would data log the time and plot the data.

Let's record the values of the Gyro Sensor while the robot is moving and is trying to keep its orientation straight. This is an interesting experiment and we will have to use file access to write the values to a file. 

This video tutorial contains the final 2 programs for moving straight with a LEGO Mindstorms EV3 robot. The first program is for proportional compensation that just keeps the robot orientation straight, while the second program is for Integral compensation that returns the robot to the straight line when the robot makes a mistake. 

Sometimes when we are working with sensors it is important that the time between two consecutive samples is the same. This will make each sample equally important and independent of how much time it took to take it. In this video tutorial, we would use the EV3-G timer block to make a "WaitForTick" program where the time between each sample of the EV3 Gyro takes exactly 0.02 seconds. 

In this video tutorial, we would do a few experiments with the coefficients for the Integral compensation. There are actually two coefficients - "c" and "b"

This video tutorial is about understanding the "magic". In this video tutorial, we would conduct an experiment and will look at how exactly does the integral part of the PID algorithm compensate for the error that the LEGO Mindstorms EV3 robot makes. 

The integral part "remembers" the errors that the robot has made in the past and we can compensate for those errors. This will make the robot return back to the line that we would like to keep it aligned. 

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.

We keep the robot orientation straight while moving, but when we stop the robot could be in a different orientation. This applies for both using the Mindstorms Gyro Sensor when moving straight or the Mindstorms Color sensor when following a line. In this video tutorial, we will do a few examples of when an how this could happen.

The first part of making the robot move straight is to keep it oriented straight. While it moves it could make an error and turn slightly to the right and then the program should turn in back to the left to make its orientation straight. In this video tutorial, we would discuss how to implement a program to keep the robot orientation straight even when we are pushing or pulling it to either side and in the same time it has different wheels.

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.