Robotics Academy Blog  

“May Madness” was hosted by Sarah Heinz House and Carnegie Mellon University where twenty-four teams competed in robotics challenges.

“Robotics translate extremely well into what comes after high school,” teacher and robotics faculty sponsor Mike Dischner said. “It’s about problem solving, science, math and research.”

Pittsburgh area sophomore Dalton Shaffer said the critical thinking skills that connect programming with physical robotics tasks develop as students grow academically. “We learn different skills that we need to be successful in our future,” he said.

Norm Kerman, educational coordinator at the CMU Robotics Academy, said robotics brings enthusiasm to what could be a drab curriculum.

“(Robots) are great learning tools,” he said. “You learn to program. You learn time management. You learn team-building. You learn logical thinking. You’ve got to go from step A to step C, and step B better be in the middle.”

Kerman runs all local tournaments and assists in teacher training for participating public school districts and private schools.

“We are allowing a syntax-based language,” Kerman said. “That’s the language the high school uses. Middle school students get a chance to see what high school participants are doing.”

VEX touts its robotics competitions as the largest and fastest growing among middle and high school students with more than 3,500 teams from 20 countries playing in more than 250 tournaments around the globe. Dischner said VEX combines simplicity with versatility, allowing students to perfect their construction and programming skills.

“It’s all pretty modular, but it’s a fairly flexible system,” he explained. “They experiment with theories in the basic concepts of science, engineering and physics,
and they see what happens.”

The event included a ring toss competition for robots designed by middle school students on a 4-by-8-foot table. High school students competed in a 12-by-12-foot floor space. In addition, teams also designed and implemented animations using Alice, a free 3D programming environment that makes it easy to create an animation for telling a story, playing an interactive game, or a video to share on the web.

Click here to see a full article from Trib Total media.

Robot Virtual Worlds (RVW) has announced a new release scheduled for this Friday, April 13, 2012!

Among the modifications in this release are new utility tables, new challenges, and new robots!  Check out the blog release here!

Not familiar with Robot Virtual Worlds?
RVW allows students to use their ROBOTC code on virtual robots in a simulated environment. Students will be able to write and test code in RVW and then export the same code into a real NXT or VEX robot.

With RVW, students do not have to purchase a robot, they can compile and test code much quicker, and they can use robots in fantastic environments that are unthinkable to do in the classroom!

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NASATalk is hosting a unique presentation series featuring NXT next week and the Computer Science Student Network (CS2N) is presenting on Tuesday!

The discussion will talk about resources and activities for classrooms.

It’s free, it’s online – and everyone is invited (including you).

•  Admission: Free
•  Date: Tuesday, April 10th
•  Time: 4:00pm – 5:00pm EST

Please visit the CS2N blog to learn more.

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Engineering teams have been given a set of topographical maps and a sophisticated robotic system to solve a set of robotic challenges using state of the art software, telecommunications, and multi-sensor feedback.  Teams are using current methodologies demonstrated by the Mars Lander missions where NASA was able to remotely control its Pathfinder robot by sending snippets of code to control the robot enabling NASA to explore the Martian surface. Today, teams are challenged to write code that enables their robots to autonomously collect fuel cells to power-up the communications system of an abandoned robotic mining colony. The simulation software that enables this challenge to take place is being jointly developed by the Robotics Academy at Carnegie Mellon University, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), and Robomatter Incorporated.  The software is being designed to inspire a larger percentage of students to pursue computer science related careers.

Computer science and robotic technologies are changing all facets of industry and the country that inspires its brightest students to pursue these areas of study will begin to secure its economic future. DARPA and other government agencies looking at our country’s economics are concerned that the United States doesn’t have enough students pursuing advanced computer science to stimulate future innovation.  The Robotics Academy and Robomatter have developed a new robotics education game called “Operation Reset”.  Operation Reset is a simulated virtual world where robots are controlled using ROBOTC, a leading educational robot programming language, and Unity Technologies game development engine. The simulation software provides an inexpensive solution  that allows students to program virtual robots which are equipped with a full physics engine and capable of providing real-time feedback using simulated encoders, sonar sensors, compass sensors, and light and touch sensors. The robot virtual world simulation is supported by free training materials which can be found at www.robotc.net.  The software enables students to control their virtual robots using the exact same code that they can use to program their LEGO and VEX robots.  The newer worlds have a videogame like feel to them designed to motivate and enrich the learning experience. If you already have the RVW license Operation Reset is a free download.

This project is part of the newly emerging Computer Science Student Network. Operation Reset has evolved from initial research conducted by the Robotics Academy around Robot Virtual Worlds into a multifaceted product being distributed through Robomatter Inc.

The Robot Virtual Worlds are programmed using ROBOTC software, which is used in robotic education classrooms and competitions across the globe. Programmers are able to use the same code on the simulated virtual robots and the real world robots. You can download and test out the beta version of the software here. For optimal performance your computer should meet the following specifications:

• PC Compatible OS: Windows XP, Vista or Windows 7
• Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo processor family or better, AMD Athlon X2 processor family or better
• Memory: 2 GB RAM
• Graphics: NVIDIA® GeForce® 8800GTS or better, ATI Radeon™ HD 3850 or better
• DirectX®: DirectX® 9.0c and DirectX® 10
• Hard Drive: 200 MB free hard drive space
• Sound: Standard audio device

Read more about computer requirements for Robot Virtual Worlds here.

For information about The Robotics Academy, ROBOTC Programming language and The Robot Virtual Worlds visit the following links:

http://www.education.rec.ri.cmu.edu

http://www.robotc.net

http://www.cs2n.org/rvw

Hi everyone!

ROBOTC 3.04 has just been released. Head on over to the download pages of ROBOTC.net to download the latest version!

3.03 to 3.04 Change log:

Change log:

1. Fixed silent updater bug
2. Modified sensor scale and full count settings for gyros for VEX PIC.
3. Eliminated deprecated warning for “#pragma platform”. Remove warning on “#pragma competition”
4. dited BuiltInVariables.txt to include Battery & Power Control category, including 3 new entries for VEX battery level.
5. Added intrinsic to ROBOTCIntrinsics to return BackupBatterLevel value.
6. Corrected BuiltInVariables.txt to prevent displayLCDPos from appearing in “Undefined Entries”
7. Updated BuiltInVariables.txt to reflect additions to VEX Display commands
8. Modified RobotCIntrinsics.c setLCDPos command to “setLCDPosition”
9. Merge fixes from 32Bit branch for >160 subroutines.
10. Rebuild VEX firmware files because they were out of date.
11. Change text for button on VEX remote screen from “Enter” to “Center”.
12. Support on Prolific cables for workaround to protocol errors for IFI defined special Cortex messages. Previously was only implemented on integrated USB-to-Serial.
13. Correct incorrect code generation for a parameter “call by reference” variable which is itself a “call by reference” variable.
14. Add new intrinsics for VEX LCD to specify line and char position of the “Put”. Add alias “setLCDPos” for “displayLCDPos”
15. Bump version to 9.04 / 3.04. Rebuild firmware.
16. Eliminate NXT EXE encrypted file headers. It causes a bug with >160 subroutines on NXT. Need to rebuild NXT firmware to support this change.
17. When return statement from a “non void” function is unreachable because function contains an infinite loop compiler used to generate an error message that “No return statement from non-void function”. Now it generates a warning that an infinite loop prevents return.
18. Timer values on VEX (and NXT) were incorrectly truncated to 16-bits instead of preserving the 32-bit value.
19. Incorrect code generation for assignments when the expression is a compound expression and it uses an intrinsic function that refers to the ‘l-value” of the assignment.
20. Fixed Licensing System but when deactivating any product but ROBOTC for Mindstorms and it was the only product in the list.
21. Hid two options in the “NXT Brick” menu to prevent crashing when in RVW mode
22. Fixed an issue where the “Toggle Comment” button may crash ROBOTC when used near the beginning and end of a file.
23. Fixed an issue where the “View” menu on the NXT was displaying incorrect data with the NXT Encoders.
24. You can now drag/drop files to the ROBOTC application and also associate .c and .h files with ROBOTC.

So folks have been asking how to use the Robot Virtual Worlds.  Here is a quick Video that shows you how to use the software.  If this doesn’t make sense please tell me what you are looking for.

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The new FTC Bowled Over Virtual Gameboard has been edited allowing the placement of robots in four different start positions. The ROBOTC development team has also fixed the physics problem found in the first build.  The VEX Gateway challenge now has four start positions and allows teams to test their programs with the gate up or the gate down. Download a copy of the Robot Virtual World at www.robotc.net/rvw to learn how Robot Virtual Worlds work click here: http://www.robotc.net/rvw/rvw-getting-started.pdf

Check it out.  It is cool.  Robots are configured with encoders, sonar, touch, light, and compass sensors.  You can build robot behaviors in the virtual world and test them.  The behaviors will need to be tweaked when you actually transfer them to the robot but you will have a large advantage by being able to begin you robot path planning.  The ROBOTC team is taking team suggestions on robot configuration at the ROBOTC Forum www.robotc.net/forum

Here is a quick video that shows the FTC Bowled Over Challenge -

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 Here is a quick video that shows the VEX Gateway Challenge -

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Teachers, coaches, and parents,

Now that the summer is here you may have time to review new curriculum. ROBOTC is the fastest growing robotics software available in education today! ROBOTC was just selected as the programming language that will be used in the PLTW school network.

The facts are in:
- ROBOTC has been optimized for education. The Robotics Academy conducts iterative testing on the end user experience and use the results of testing to improve ROBOTC’s features.
- It has the best-in-class built in debugger. The programmer can see all of the robot’s inputs and outputs real time. This information is incredibly valuable when debugging your robots programs.
- The curriculum continues to evolve with the product. The current curriculums are posted for free on the front page of  www.robotc.net
- There are continually evolving complementary products like the Robot Virtual World Software.
- ROBOTC is cross platform. You can use the same software IDE to program LEGO, VEX, and now Arduino robots.

We are committed to making programming easier for students and teachers globally.

Check it out. Its getting easier to learn to program every day.

Congratulations to all the VEX Robotics teams that participated in the World Championship! After seeing all of the creative, well-engineered solutions, it’s clear how much hard work you all put in this season. Job well done!

What is the VEX Robotics World Championship?
The VEX Robotics World Championship is a gathering of top robotics teams from around the world to celebrate their accomplishments and compete with/against the best of the best. The 2011 VEX Robotics World Championship will include top teams from over 200 VEX Robotics Competition tournaments happening in cities around the world from May 2010 to March 2011.