I am mentoring a team of 3rd graders from my son’s school. All of the kids and parents (including me) are new to Vex IQ. The students built the “Clutch” robot and are now wanting to program it. It looks like we should be using the VEXCode IQ Blocks software. I have installed it on my Mac and the kids are testing basic driving commands.
The team’s “Clutch” robot does not have any sensors (yet) including no gyro, but they were still able to define a drivetrain for the program.
The problem they are having is that “left” and “right” are reversed when we have the ports and drivetrain direction set up so that “forwards” and “backwards” are correct. Is anyone else having this problem?
Is the ball-claw side of the robot considered the “forward” direction and the cube-hook side of the robot considered the “backwards” direction?
Also, does the robot brain’s “driver” configuration affect how Blocks commands are interpreted? We have “Drive FWD” set to “Reverse” like how it says to do on page 47 of the instructions but I am assuming that only applies to manual driving?
If someone has created programs with a “clutch” robot without gyro sensor, I would appreciate it if you could please post your drivetrain settings. Thanks!
Hi, daughter’s elementary school were building clutch during their summer camp. Yes, the claw side if the front, and the hook on the lift is the back. The orientation of the brain won’t affect how it drives.
Is “driver” configuration the same as the menu option called “Driver Control” on the brain? Wondering since you also mention the kids testing drive commands with the VEXCode blocks. If you operate the robot with the “Driver Control” option it doesn’t execute your teleop program that would be built with VEXCode. Driver Control uses preprogrammed assignments to control the robot based on what motor/sensor is plugged into what port. Here’s the layout https://help.vex.com/article/269-how-to-use-the-driver-control-program.
If you want your own custom controller layout, then you would use VEXCode IQ blocks and build a teleop program.
Do you know if they used VEXCode IQ blocks with Clutch at your daughter’s camp? That is what my group is having trouble with.
When you want to operate Clutch manually with the controller, you need to go into the “Configure” screen under the robot brain’s “Driver Control” main menu. You need to change “Drive FWD” option to “Reverse” for the controller to work properly. This is working fine for our group.
My question was whether that “Drive FWD” option also affects how VEXCode IQ Blocks programming commands are interpreted. I wouldn’t expect it to, because of the way the interface is structured, but I am struggling to understand why “left” and “right” are reversed when the programming blocks are executed.
I assume that “left” and “right” are supposed to be from the robot’s perspective, but they are reversed for us when a program is run.
No, the teacher uses Graphical Robot C. But basically the same other than the syntax. Their robotics teams do not use Driver Control. They did last year… but this year, it’s all Teleop. They have a team that built an H drive, and Driver Control doesn’t work well with it. So, the team with the H drive has an arcade control teleop program, and a lot of the kids like the arcade style.
No, from a motor standpoint it’s not left or right. There’s no really “left” or “right” but which side you mount the motor as well as the gearing (even number of gears, odd number of gears, etc.). It is about what is forward spin. Simplest thing to do is in VEXCode IQ Blocks, if you are finding the motors are spinning in the wrong direction, go to the motor set up and mark the motor that is spinning in the wrong direction as “reversed”. That will correct the issue when you run the teleop program.
Our problem is getting Clutch to work with a VEXCode IQ Blocks drivetrain, which supports “forward”, “backwards”, “left” and “right” We are basing “left” and “right” from the robot’s perspective looking “forward”
I will double-check that the motors are mounted according to the instructions. Thanks for that tip!