Video tutorials

Notes on building the FiveMinuteBot

We will learn how to connect and disconnect LEGO cables and on which ports exactly to connect the motors.

The most universal way to start your programs is from My Projects menu and we will cover details about that menu in the EV3 Brick.

This video tutorial had a different idea than what we recorded. We planned for a push/pull attachment as we've shown such attachments for LEGO Education SPIKE PRIME and LEGO MINDSTORMS EV3. However, the issues with LEGO MINDSTORMS Robot Inventor set 51515 is that we could not figure out an easy way to build a push pull attachment that meets our criteria for an attachment. Because of this we made a slight modification on the idea and it is again push/pull attachment but not moving in a line but in a circle - circular movement.

Following the Advance Light/Color sensors calibration for a minimum value for a single sensor tutorial, in this one, we continue with finding the maximum value detected by a sensor and storing this value in an array.

For making the diode blink we just use one of the examples available in the Arduino Software. 

We dispay the speed of rotation of the wheels on the brick screen. We use the math blocks to do a proper calculations from rotation to radians per second. Knowing the speed, the radiuses and the mass of the wheels we find energy in Joules accumulated in the construction.

There is no block for programming the Ultrasonic Sensor in the retail version of the LEGO Mindstorms EV3 software. In this video tutorial we will show you how you can download & import such blocks in order to use the sensor.

Construct two legs for both sides of the robot. The task for this video is to attach this two legs on both sides and to build a system of gears and axles that power those legs.

On of the most precise ways to position on the FIRST LEGO League and other competition fields is to follow and align and in this tutorial we demonstrate exactly this - how consistent and reliable this method is to reach specific mission models. In this way you know that every time you will be at the right place, which is great.

In this video tutorial we demonstrate a really important concept for FIRST LEGO League competitions - you position the robot on the field with depending on timers and rotations. The issue with moving the robot for 10 seconds and then stopping is that every time it is in a different location. Same for rotations. The wheels will slip, the battery will change, something will happen and the robot will not be in the same place every time. This is not consistent and reliable.

This is a remote control car. Have fun with it before disassembling it.

This is how to use the display block to show images with the EV3 software.

Let's make a program that moves the robot forward and then backward.

There are some things to be careful about when your students work with the brick.

In this 10 out of 10 tutorial we demonstrate the accuracy of the robot when we use acceleration in its movements. The robot has not sensors attached to it and it is not making use of it's internal sensors. The goal of the tutorial is to give you the understanding and to make a demonstration of how difficult it is to consistently reach a mission model without the use of sensor even when we use acceleration.

In this video tutorial we try to move forward with a LEGO Mindstorms Robot Inventor robot and we try to keep a straight line using the Motion Sensor. Without entering into the details of the programming we demonstrate what is the behavior of the robot when trying to keep a straight line with the Motion Sensor while we are participating in a FIRST LEGO League competition.

Explanation and demonstration of the big task for the lesson.

Developing a program for the Arduino is very easy. We need to do again three thigs:

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

What is allowed and what is not when building without instructions.

Each palette contains programming blocks that share common purpose. We will cover most of them

This is a teacher's note about the math behind calculating gear ratios with for our lifting attachment. It math model we build in previous tutorials is not exactly correct and here is the explanation why.

A note why we give the challenge at the start of the lesson.

The important task before the solution. If you haven't done it already, then attach a new axle at the front of the robot and extend the construction with gear wheels and axles to reach the two legs at the two sides of the robot. 

In episode 11 we looked at one of the most important topics for the competition - calibrating the light sensors. In this video I would like to show you how to use a more programmatic approach. This means letting the robot do the calibration on its own. Automatically.

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.