VEXcode V5 - Troubleshooting Help

[jonathans]

Kids are working through an autonomous routine. For some reason some of the motors will not work in under the “When autonomous” hat block. Scenarios…

1. lift arm - wait until bump pressed - stop lift - start roller - wait time - stop roller
   In this case the lift arm will not lift. I have even tried to sub the wait until bump with a wait for time. Nothing. But if I remove the lift arm, the roller works. Or if I add a drive command at the beginning it will drive but then do nothing afterward.
2. I put the code as we want it under the “When started”, it all runs just the way we expect it too. even the lift arms.

**Bottom line - some motors will function under the When autonomous hat block while others will not.

I am having this issue with more than one robot. So, I assume it is something we are doing. If you can advise, I would appreciate it!

[weilin]

The lift motors could be under too much stress. You may need to enable motor “hold” function when they are stopped (on the software side) and add some elastics to help counteract the force of gravity (on the hardware side).

@gbr

When you add a motor to the Devices, you’ll see the Motion blocks for the motor appear. Then you can use the ‘set motor stopping’ block:

(From VEXCode Help)
This will set the behavior of the V5 Smart Motor once it stops moving.

• Brake will cause the Motor to come to an immediate stop.
• Coast lets the Motor spin gradually to a stop.
• Hold will cause the Motor to come to an immediate stop, and returns it to its stopped position if moved.

The set motor stopping will take effect for all future motor commands for the rest of the project.

If the problem still persists, please, attach pictures of your robot and full program code, so it is easier to understand the problem.

[Connor]

@jonathans

Kids are working through an autonomous routine. For some reason some of the motors will not work in under the “When autonomous” hat block. Scenarios…

1. lift arm - wait until bump pressed - stop lift - start roller - wait time - stop roller
   In this case the lift arm will not lift. I have even tried to sub the wait until bump with a wait for time. Nothing. But if I remove the lift arm, the roller works. Or if I add a drive command at the beginning it will drive but then do nothing afterward.
2. I put the code as we want it under the “When started”, it all runs just the way we expect it too. even the lift arms.

**Bottom line - some motors will function under the When autonomous hat block while others will not.

I am having this issue with more than one robot. So, I assume it is something we are doing. If you can advise, I would appreciate it!

Although I am a community member, I have used VEXCode for a prolonged period of time. I have tried making out what you’re trying to say but it really is difficult to fully understand what is going on unless I can see code. Would it be possible to paste your code in here?

[jonathans]

So, I took time to get some screenshots of the student code. And in trying different scenarios, I think we got it sorted out. We did not have a “When driver” hat block. Only “When autonomous” and “When started”. Now that we have added that everything seems to be working fine. Kind of an odd deal, but I think we got it sorted out. Thanks everyone for posting and trying to help. If the problem pops again and it ends up we didn’t correct the issue, I’ll post again with images and a more clear description of the issue.