An Introduction to VEX IQ Programming with Modkit Robotics Lesson Materials: VEX IQ Basebot (per 2 students) Computer running Modkit (per 2 students) An Introduction to VEX IQ Programming with Modkit Lesson 01

INTRODUCTION Robots have been part of our fantasy and science fiction for many years. In the last few decades robots have also become a reality of everyday life. Can you give some examples of robots? Lesson Purpose: The purpose of this lesson is to introduce students to the VEX IQ robot platform as an ICT programming resource. The aim is to transfer basic programming skills to a physical environment.

Google Car Clip of Google car in action. This could also link to many of the main car manufacturers who are all working on their own autonomous vehicles.

VEX IQ / Modkit – The Interface Introduce the Modkit interface: robot/blocks, drag/drop, saving,…

Assembling The Robot Assemble your robot: Use drivetrain only (ports 1 and 6). Make sure drivetrain settings match your Basebot, inc. ensuring the wheel grouping is set to ‘connected’.

VEX IQ / Modkit - Blocks Demonstrate how the ‘blocks’ part of the interface works. Link back to Scratch lessons. Don’t forget handy shortcuts at the top (setup, output,..) and mention how the availability of the blocks changes as you select different sensors/motors.

When you’re ready, select the slot and download to the VEX IQ Brain Your First Program Step 1 Step 2 Our first program: Moving forward. Use broadcast + when blocks to get object oriented approach. Communicate from brain to other parts. Leave out stop, then test program, see what happens? When you’re ready, select the slot and download to the VEX IQ Brain

Debugging What went wrong? Will this now work? Robots are ‘stupid’ , won’t use common sense -> every action needs to be in the program. Finding and fixing mistakes in a program is called debugging. We need to add the stop function, does this fix it? What else is needed (animation on the wait block)

Adapting Your Program Challenge Free Choice You need to move the robot forward for two seconds and then backwards for two seconds. Free Choice Explore the other drivetrain blocks and see in which other ways you can control the robot… Next: adapt program : move forward for 2 seconds (use wait block), then move backwards for 2 seconds (not on slide), download to robot. Once complete – on animation - Invite students to use other drivetrain blocks (free choice) and experiment. If time allows, put actions in repeat loop.

Summary Today you have: Learned about different types of robots. Learning objective: Identify different types of robots, basic understanding of VEX IQ and how ModKit is used to program it, create a simple program , test it, adjust. Today you have: Learned about different types of robots. Written a program for a robot. Downloaded your program to a robot. Learned to debug a program.