Motion control.

After the exam we'll start a section on precisely moving the tri-bot along straight and circular paths. If you are interested in seeing the test track you will be working on, go here. I've already printed the track onto a full-sized poster that will be stored in the MathLab for you to use in testing.

My hope is to have us spend a class seeing how well each of us has programmed our robots to traverse the path.

Lamp blocks.

So yesterday I finally got around to building the tri-bot robot I assigned last week. As I was rooting through the parts, I noticed that there are lego blocks with little lights on them (officially called lamps). There are also cables with blocks at the end that appear to be electrical connectors. So, putting two and two together, I put the lamp blocks on the electrical sockets. Now, how to make them work.

I figured a lamp needs power... so does a motor. So I put the lamp cable into a motor port (PID off). Treating the lamp like a motor does the trick! The more power you send to the lamp the brighter it gets.

I also noticed that there are translucent green and red blocks, so now I have colored lights on my robot (I know you're jealous).

One little stumbling block (no pun) is that there appears to be a preferred direction for putting the lamp block on the electricity block. One direction works, one doesn't.

Saving Files

When saving a program, don't put periods in its name. It won't work.

VirtualBox Control Panel

If ever the Windows XP icon fails to work, you can get more information about why it's not working by running the menu item:

Applications->System Tools->Sun xVM VirtualBox

Click through any pop-up windows (accepting the defaults) until the main window appears. This window lets you start and stop various operating systems you might have (we only have one). It also allows you to configure aspects of the operating systems, how much memory to allocate, which hardware is accessible etc.

Feel free to play around with it, there's really nothing that you can break that can be fixed. Also, visit the VirtualBox website for more information.

A

Copying and Pasting into RobotC

When doing the Hello World Program, or any other, you can copy and paste the code into RobotC if you copy using the mouse right click (rather than Ctrl+C). This should save everyone some time.

Tom

Evening help.

Alex Robinson, my student assistant for this class, will be available in the MathLab on Wednesday evenings from 7-8:30pm (for at least a few weeks) to answer robot questions.

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