I’m a teaching assistant (student with a fancy title) for a highschool robotics class. Due to Lego giving up on their EV3s, we had to switch robotics one to Vex iqs. Unfortunately we are on a bit of a tight budget and due to some… poor financial decisions, we only have the base kits for v2 Vex iqs. There’s not much to do in the realm of like… building, compared to EV3s, and we need enough material to fill most of a semester.
Does anyone have any ideas for cool things we could add to the curriculum?? Like, do ppl make custom projects with instructions? I understand this is a bit of a strange ask, but I’m working with what we have (not much)
If you wanna know what we have to work with, we have a bunch of g2 iq base sets, three iq field kits, and quite a few boxes of assorted secondhand g1 iq parts.
Places to look are the free teacher classes that VEX has. There are lots of examples of things to do. There are mechanical and programming things you can do.
When you say IQ field kits do you mean you have the white 6x8 fields?
If so, there are some of last years and this years game still in stock at VEX, you can get them and play the games. As a bonus they will give you extra beams and stuff to use in the robot build.
You can also create your own games, line following complex paths, do automation (move cubes from here to there) etc. You can also think about the FLL games from prior years and think how to scale them up some in size. Nothing stopping you from building a game out of the $2.3 million Lego parts you have.
You have the colored touch sensors, so building eye hand games with them is pretty easy. The Simon color game is straight forward to program.
Good luck, if you want to chat more, do some searching for my email you can find it in other posts.
tysm! We’re looking less for activities and more for builds, though. It’s just a bit disappointing that the provided instructions are just so… limited. And for an intro class, we definitely want them building AND having fun. We’re definitely doing battlebots and a color sensor activity, but other than that its a bit barren. Idk, I’m probably not explaining this well.
(we do have the 6x8 fields, though. lego pieces are being used for a unit in a different class, apparently? idk, my instructor is a bit strange)
Battle bots can be fun, depending on how this season goes, I’m going to try with a size limit of 11x11x11 with a few holes in the slightly raised floor. They won’t fall all the way down, but a 4" drop is enough to capture them.
I really try to push the “free design” ideas. We build some simple things and then unleash the ideas and the building.
I like line following, a roll of “newsprint” and some black paint you can do ovals, dog bones, figure 8’s. You can do auto / partial help. If the robot thinks it’s stuck, it stops, and flashes the red LED. The driver can drive the robot back on to the course and then let the robot take over. The mechanical part is pretty easy to build, a simple square bot with downward facing sensors.
Can you describe the things the Lego class built / worked on? I’m pretty sure that all of those lessons can be duplicated in VEX. I’ve gone through the Lego books by Yoshihito Isogawa and have successfully built a number of the examples. Some are easier to build with the VEX Go motors since they are much smaller as is the brain.
https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Yoshihito+Isogawa
Good luck!
I assume you already know about these IQ builds?
yup! that’s all we have at the moment.
It’s been a few years since I took the class but I remember doing the gyro boy and puppy builds, as well as all variations on the base robots (and the corresponding activities). I hadn’t thought of attempting to replicate them in Vex, but I suppose its worth a shot? Couldn’t hurt. Are Vex go motors any different from g1/g2 iq motors? I’m unfamiliar.
(on a school account so can’t look at the link, but I looked the guy up and those do look fun!!)
Idea dump time:
- obstacle course (climbing or avoidance based)
- race course
- sumo (get your opponent(s) out of a ring/zone and be the last one remaining)
- robot fight (to avoid robots getting damaged, make pressing a bump switch on the opponent’s robot the goal)
- robot basketball (like many of the official VEX games, a hoop based scoring system - the projectiles can be balled-up paper or something like that)
- robot soccer (like robot basketball but the robots are not allowed to launch the projectile and the scoring area is a soccer-style goal rather than a hoop)
- autonomous color sorting competition (the goal is to put each block in a corresponding area on the field based on color matching - the blocks can be made out of the LEGO pieces, especially since irregular blocks would make it even more fun)
Bonus: You can even ask the students in the class to pitch in by creating a survey (via a google form or something similar) where students can suggest ideas. If you end up having a hard time choosing which competitions to choose for the class, you can even have the students vote on their favorite(s).
If necessary, you can also have them start by building preset drivetrains based on building instructions and then modifying them for the competitions. Some of these drivetrains can be found in the link @cougarbots provided.
Nice post @Some_random_person, great list of ideas and thanks for the link.
Just pretend that I didn’t say anything about the VEX GO motors, they will spiral you into a deeper hole.
But I will explain. VEX GO is VEX IQ geared to younger roboteers. The pins in VIQ are hard for the average 3rd grader to manage. GO has softer pins that little fingers can manipulate(*). They are also the last kits that you can buy upgrade parts for that still come in colors. The GO brain only has 4 ports for motors, magnet, etc. There is a Eye sensor (light and color) that plugs into a special port. The motors are smaller but less powerful. Because of the smaller brain and motors, I can build smaller demo models. The GO brain is ~$30, so I don’t mind a much leaving it in the robot and moving the battery pack ~$36 from robot to robot.
Classroom use at your level, VIQ is the way to go. Messing around with building models from Yoshihito Isogawa’s books is easier with GO.
(*) Yes, I do throw the softer pins away and use the VIQ pins to build with because I want the models to last being moved around. I can not confirm or deny that some of my Lego and VIQ constructions may or may not have come in contact with industrial adhesive. YMMV)
Tysm! I feel a bit in over my head (I um. my mom pointed out that the way I worded this does not make it clear that I’m a high schooler and not like. A college student doing it for credits) so I don’t really have much authority in terms of actual instruction unless I basically force the teacher to do it for me. Next semester he actually plans on testing these out with the class I’m in, so hopefully he’ll listen to me a bit more then? But I definitely will push for/try to introduce these
I figured it was a system geared for younger kids, those pins are IMPOSSIBLE. But yeah, for the sake of this, I’ll ignore them lmao
I switched from Lego Mindstorms to VEX IQ and couldn’t be happier. You might consider VEX IQ STEM labs. It has a curriculum spelled out so you don’t need to invent everything. Plenty to keep them learning, not just building. High school students can go quickly, so if done early in the semester Sumobots is a fantastic capstone project. I have a project based on a very simplified version of the annual IQ Competition process if interested.
There is always an option for a modular system: build two compact “brain with motors” power pack modules that could be connected (inserted) into various chassis built by different teams out of VEX IQ parts, Legos, or even popsicle sticks.
This way students could experiment with various actuator attachment and drivetrain types, like the wheeled, tracked, or
even quadrupedal drives.
recreate the things that you built with ev3 with iq?
i done EV3 before.