Video tutorials -

• FIRST LEGO League

In this video tutorial we accomplish the FIRST LEGO League 2022-2023 SUPER POWERED mission called M04 Solar Farm. We use the chain monster box robot along with a passive attachment that helps us collect 3 of the energy units. The interesting thing about the mission is the collection of the units, of course, but also the way this robot manoeuvres when there is not enough space. It aligns to the lines, it uses the color and motion sensors. Really advance way to align the robot.

Using everything that we've learned about LEGO Education SPIKE Prime competition programming we arrive at the final boss mission - how do we consistently reach a mission model at the other end of the field. Consistently. Every time. We use line following, motion sensor, counting of lines and border alignment. All the different concepts that we've looked at separately are now implemented together.

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. 

The robot can move with different speed by applying different power to the motors. It will most of the time make smaller deviations when it moves slower. But you can't just move with a power of 10 all the time. This is a way too slow especially for competitions like FIRST LEGO League or World Robot Olympiad. In this video tutorial I would like to discuss the balance between motor power and robot movement error, how does the battery influence the power of the robot and to conduct an EV3-G experiment that will record the values of the Gyro Sensor along with the current power. 

This is a 10 out of 10 video tutorial where we demonstrate the consistency and reliability of a LEGO Education SPIKE Prime Active attachment connected to the motors of the robot. The goal of this attachment is to accomplish the Bridge mission where we have to push both parts of the bridge and bring them down to connect them. We use some line following.

In this video tutorial, we accomplish a FIRST LEGO League mission called The Bridge. We demonstrate how to use a really simple active attachment where the goal of the mission is to push down both parts of the bridge. We do not enter into the programming and we leave it up to you as an exercise.

In this 10 out of 10 tutorial, we accomplish the Platooning Trucks from FIRST LEGO League (FLL) 2021-2022. The goal of the mission is to connect the trucks to each other and both of them to the bridge. The attachment and the robot pushes the trucks and we do it 10 times to see the consistency and reliability of the robot.

In this video tutorial, we accomplish the FIRST LEGO League 2021-2022 mission called Platooning Trucks. The goal is to connect the two mission models (trucks) to each other and then connect them both to the bridge. It's quite an interesting mission as it involves three mission models.

This is a 10 out of 10 video tutorial demonstrating the consistency and reliability of a configurable attachment. The attachment is designed to accomplish the FIRST LEGO League 2021-2022 Cargo Connect mission model called Sorting Center. The mission model has 3 cargo objects that could be placed in a different way. The attachment is configurable and before the run we configure it for the specific way in which the mission model is set up before the start of the round.

In this video tutorial, we demonstrate a configurable attachment used for accomplishing a FIRST LEGO League 2021-2022 Cargo Connect mission called Sorting Center. The mission model has three cargo objects that are placed randomly. The attachment is configured before the run based on the configuration of the cargo objects. This attachment is also very powerful as it aligns and auto-corrects the errors that the robot is making by squaring the robot.

This is a recording of a completely perfect, 10 out of 10 accomplishment of a two-part mission - Train tracks, from the FIRST LEGO League 2021-2022 Cargo Connect competition. Due to the proper use of motion and color/light sensors, the robot is 100% consistent and reliable for a non-trivial mission. Even when the robot makes a mistake, it auto-corrects and compensates for this mistake.

This tutorial explains the use of motion and light/color sensors to accomplish a complex mission split into three parts. It gets into detail about how we keep a straight line with the motion sensor, follow a line with the color sensors, and transition between different parts of the program by aligning and detecting lines with the sensor. The goal is to get to a reliable and consistent behavior of the robot. On top of that, it is configurable, as we've left a few parameters that could be set to configure the behavior for a specific robot, venue, lighting, battery level, and wheels friction.

"Sometimes it works, sometimes it does not work" - this is the most common case in FIRST LEGO League competitions. In this tutorial, we demonstrate and discuss such a case where the first part of accomplishing the mission always works but the second part has about 60-70% success rate. The robot is not very consistent. Let's take a moment to see it and explain why so that we can resolve the problem in the next lesson.

In this video tutorial, we use the motion sensor and demonstrate 10 out of 10 times how we can keep the robot moving in a straight line. The program is described in the previous tutorial in the lesson where we enter into the programming. Here we visualize how consistent and reliable the behavior of the robot is.

In this video tutorial, we use the Unload Cargo Ship mission from FIRST LEGO League 2021 Cargo Connect robotics competition to demonstrate how we program the robot to keep a straight line while moving. Do we need that for this mission? Probably not, but we do it either way to demonstrate the solution in a fairly simple mission. The program uses the motion sensor to auto-correct the errors the robot is making while moving.

This is a 10 out of 10 tutorial for pushing gently on a mission model. We also discuss how to build robots that tolerate error and auto-correct their behavior.

In this video tutorial, we demonstrate how to gently push an object to accomplish the mission. "Gently" means that we are pushing but not with force. If we push using force, the mission model will fall, and we will not accomplish the mission. We use LEGO Education SPIKE Prime and the Ultrasonic Sensor.

With this first tutorial on the Motion Sensor in the LEGO MINDSTORMS Robot Inventor course we demonstrate the basic algorithm for moving in a straight line with the Motion Sensor. From here all the other algorithms are modifications, and if you know the basic it will be easier to tweak the behavior for your particular challenge

In this video tutorial, we push two of the mission models with a pinless active attachment with gears. The goal is to push the mission models after the blue lines. This attachment is interesting as it demonstrates a non-straightforward idea of how we can push the mission models. We explain the Scratch program and how we use the motion sensors - you will learn how to turn to a specific angle by using the motion sensor.

In this video tutorial we take a next step in programming reliable and consistent robots and this is to learn how to stop at a second intersection. We need this because most of the time when we want to reach a mission model on a robotics competition field, the model will be located away from us and we must use all kind of technique to reach it. In this tutorial - we stop at a second intersection.

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.

In this video tutorial we show how you can build robots that position on the field consistently and reliably by following and line and then aligning to a line. We also demonstrate the concept of "double align" which is quite powerful and even if there were some mistakes they will be handled.

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. 

This is one of the last tutorials in the LEGO Education SPIKE Prime programming for Competitions course and it demonstrates what we've all been waiting for - how to reach a mission model from base in a reliable and consistent way when the mission model is on the other end of the field. Naturally what we use are all the different concepts that we've learned in the course and the tutorial is more advanced than the other so if anything is not clear take a look also at the different tutorials an concepts in the course.

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.

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.

This robot has a color sensor and this sensor is used for following lines. Additional Mindstorms EV3 sensors could be place on the robot, like a Gyro sensor or a second Color sensor.