ROBOTC.net Blog  

In preparation for the 2013 Robotics Summer of Learning, we’ve released a second round of Robot Virtual Worlds updates! New versions of the VEX Toss Up, FTC Ring It Up, and RVW Level Builder can be downloaded today.

VEX Toss Up 1.5.2
If you haven’t already signed up for the VEX Toss Up programming competition on CS2N, you should do so here.

• Added Preload Buckyballs
  • Buckyballs load into Intakebot, are placed at predefined location when using Ballerbot
• Better handling of game pieces when performing robot switch and realignment in a base zone (CS2N Competition)
• Updated scoring to include hanging with a ball bonus when low hanging
• Robots no longer fly away when hanging in CS2N Competition
• Added score submission for CS2N Competition
• Made “remember me” checkbox on login screen work properly
• Changed keyboard control mapping on Intakebot’s Tread motor to be more intuitive

FTC Ring It Up 2.5.2
Sign up for the FTC Ring It UP programming competition on CS2N here.

• Fixed Scissorbot’s through-hole grip of rings
• Fixed scoring bugs with floor goals (CS2N Competition)
• Gripperbot’s range of motion is now limited to make it specialized for picking up rings from the ground and scoring on low pegs
• Added final score popups in Ring It Up mode
• Fixed bugs with the behavior of rings that are hanging on pegs
• Made “remember me” checkbox on login screen work properly
• Added score submission for CS2N Competition

RVW Level Builder 2.1.0
CS2N is also hosting a RVW Level Builder design competition, called Beacons and Barriers. Click here to sign up and see full competition details.

• Added “checkpoint” functionality. Robots must come into contact with checkpoints before reaching the stop tile.
• Added “obstacle” functionality. Robots must not come into contact with obstacles before reaching the stop tile.

All of the updates can be downloaded from the RVW Level Packs Download area at ROBOTC.net or RobotVirtualWorlds.com.
 

We are excited to announce that our official Robotics Summer of Learning page is live!

The 2013 Robotics Summer of Learning (RSOL) is sponsored by Carnegie Mellon’s Robotics Academy and uses the Computer Science Student Network (CS2N) to host all trainings, with additional resources provided by Robomatter Inc. and other organizations. This summer, students and teachers will have the opportunity to develop programming skills, earn certifications, and win prizes. Software, training, certifications, and the competitions will all be hosted online for free through the Robotics Academy.

Check out all the great tools and features we will be offering through the Robotics Summer of Learning…

FREE Modified FTC and VEX Programming Games 

We have developed fun new “programming only” robotics games that take advantage of current VEX and FTC games. Multiple elements have been added to the game interface and field including; colored lines and tiles, IR beacons, walls, automatic loading zones, the ability to reset and reprogram your robot while still playing the match, and many more! The game’s time is tracked using the Robot Virtual Worlds’ Internal Timer. The games are played by placing objects into scoring positions as quickly as possible.

Earn Badges and a Certification

Carnegie Mellon has developed Digital Badges and Certifications designed to represent a student’s programming and robot problem solving accomplishments.  Each Badge contains information to help others understand what a student knows: who awarded it, who recognizes it, when they earned it, and links to example student code, their videos, their scores, the types of questions they answered, or other information designed to show off their accomplishments.

Example Badge Pathway. The pathway begins with an Introduction to Programming Badge, then CS Principles, Data and Algorithms, and Advanced Principles, and ends with the Certification.

Free Training and Support

Training will be provided to all students and teachers through the Robotics Summer of Learning by the developers of the curriculum and software. Our team will also be available throughout the summer to take questions on all our social media sites.

 or using hashtag #RobotSummer on Twitter and Google +.

CS2N RVW Competitive Events

Each Robotics Summer of Learning Project competition is divided into three divisions: Junior High, High School, and Open Division.

Players can only compete in the appropriate division:

• Junior High – Students in 6th through 9th grade.
• High School – Rising 10th graders through rising 12th graders. (9th, 10th, 11th grade graduates)
• Open Division – High school graduate and above.

You can find further details about each competition at www.cs2n.org/competitions.

Prizes

There are over $10,000 in prizes available to participants, including free software, robot kits, and $100 and $500 College Scholarships.

The RVW challenge is broken into two parts:

• Part One – 2013 Robotics Summer of Learning Project, which ends Saturday, August 31st, 2013.
• Part Two – RVW CS2N Robot Programming Challenge, which begins September 1, 2013.

More information will be made available about the type and number of each type of prize at CS2N.org.

Important Dates:

• Today: Players can create a CS2N account and download the software.
• June 1: Official launch of the Summer of Learning courses and forums.
• June 17: The instructor led online course will begin the third week of June.
• August 31: RSOLP completed and prizes will be announced.
• September 1: RVW CS2N Robot Programming Challenge begins.
• September 6: RSOLP competition winners will be announced and first round prizes will be distributed.
• April 2014: The Official CS2N FTC and VEX Robot Virtual World winners will be announced.

We hope every one has an enjoyable summer learning how to program!!

We had a great time at the 2013 FTC World Championship last week! It was awesome seeing so many teams using ROBOTC on their computers. We really enjoyed meeting all the different teams and hearing your stories. We will have interviews posted from the event in the next couple weeks. Thank you to every one who stopped by to say hi and congrats to EVERY team. Also thank you to FIRST and FTC for inviting us to be a part of such an awesome event. We look forward to next year!

Check out our short recap video:

And if you haven’t had a chance, head on over to our Facebook page to check out our photo album – FIRST World Championship 2013

We will be hosting our final April Robot Virtual Worlds Google hangout tonight at 6pm EST! We will be discussing the competition environments in RVW. This will be your last chance to enter the ROBOTC annual license drawing and get your 15% off discount code for Robot Virtual Worlds! Join us at http://www.robotc.net/hangouts

If you missed any of that past hangouts, check them out here …

Week 1 – What is RVW?

This past weekend, VEX Robotics announced their 2013 – 2014 challenge, VEX Toss Up at their World Championship. It was an exciting event that our team was happy to be a part of. We’re also very happy to make our brand-new VEX Toss Up Robot Virtual World available to download.

This years competition field features a higher level of interactivity and simulation than ever before. Several new robots designed specifically for Toss Up have been added to the line-up, and are fully programmable through ROBOTC.

New Robots
Check out Ballerbot pulling itself up on the hanging bar and capping one of the goals with a big ball:

Intakebot can hold two of the smaller buckyballs at a time. It’s retractable arm make it great for scoring the buckyballs or pushing any of the game obects into a scoring area on the floor:

User Interface
The new and improved user interface allows you to switch between the robots, game modes, starting points, and tells you where the growing list of motors and sensors are connected:

Controlling the Robots
Sample code for programming the robots to move autonomously or via a USB Remote control is installed with the virtual world. You will find it by going to File > Open Sample Program > VEX Toss Up.

Don’t have a USB Remote Control? No Problem! We’ve also added keyboard control for the robots in the “ROBOT SKILLS” game mode! Ballerbot and Intakebot are pretty different, but they use the same set of keys for control:

• W key: Robot moves forward
• A key: Robot turns left
• S key: Robot moves in reverse
• D key: Robot turns right
• { and } keys: Actuator 1 movement
• < and > keys: Actuator 2 movement
• ; and ‘ keys: Actuator 3 movement
• + and - keys: Actuator 4 movement

Support
We want to make sure that you’re well supported as you use the new game. Great resources can always be found at RobotVirtualWorlds.com and there’s an active community ready to answer your questions at the ROBOTC.net forums. We’ve also produced a video that will help get VEX teams started, and help them think of ways they can program their real robots:

Future Enhancements!
We’re extremely excited about this release, but we’re not done yet. Check out some of the enhancements that are on their way!

Summer of Learning Competition on CS2N
We are hosting two competitions with VEX Toss Up: one during the summer, and one during the 2013-3014 school year. Use the special CS2N mode to launch a 2-minute, autonomous-only version of the challenge. You will be able to submit your high score to a leaderboard on CS2N. Winners will be awarded prizes like robot kits, software, or even college scholarships. Full details can be found on CS2N.

Multi-player!
The VEX Toss Up RVW will be our first world to support multiple players. You will be able to connect with up to 3 additional players from anywhere in the world to play head-to-head matches. We will be releasing beta versions this summer, with a finalized version set for September 1st, 2013.

Additional Robots
Ballerbot and Intakebot are incredible robots, but we want to make sure that there’s lots of variety for for the multi-player matches. We will be adding additional robot models, each with their own characteristics this summer.

The VEX Toss Up game cane be downloaded from CS2N.org (sign-in required) or RobotVirtualWorlds.com.

We had so much fun at the 2013 VEX World Championships last week! We saw some great matches, met tons of fantastic people, and got a chance to share some big news with everyone throughout the week.  We will be posting more detailed information on our news next week, so keep an eye out for that. Thank you to every one who stopped by to say hi and congrats to EVERY team. You all did an amazing job. Also thank you to VEX Robotics and the REC Foundation for inviting us to be a part of such an awesome event. We look forward to next year!

Check out our short recap video:

And if you haven’t had a chance, head on over to our Facebook page to check out our photo album – VEX Worlds 2013.
 
 
 

Photo by Kevin Lorenzi Of Calkins Media

TimesOnline put together a great story on the first county wide RoboCup Competition in Beaver County, PA. Jason McKenna, President of the Beaver County Gifted Consortium and a Hopewell Teacher, organized the event. The competition was put together to help kids develop problem-solving skills as well as learn the basics of programming. McKenna told TimesOnline, ”The idea (for the challenge) is that robots do jobs that are too dangerous for humans. We can’t get to a chemical spill, so we have to send a robot to do the job. It has to traverse the course, get to the chemical spill, find the victim and push the victim out of the chemical spill.” One of the things we love to hear is that many of the teams used ROBOTC to program their robots and complete this challenge! To see more from the competition, check out the video below.

Check out the live broadcast of the National Mexico VEX Tournament going on now! All of the teams are using ROBOTC. The broadcast is brought to you by Reeduca, a company dedicated to implementing new technology and robotics education in Mexico.

Live Video streaming by Ustream

Looking for an awesome opportunity to test your ROBOTC skills this spring? Our friends at Parallax have the solution: the 2013 National microMedic Contest. The microMedic contest challenges participants to create cool, open-source medical devices powered by microprocessors and sensors. To motivate inventors to think outside-of-the-box, the microMedic challenge is giving away 100 free contest kits on a first-come, first-served basis and is also offering prizes to the winners of the contest (over $25,000 rewarded across 25 total winners). There are no restrictions on hardware or programming languages, so this is the perfect opportunity to hone your ROBOTC expertise with the VEX, LEGO, or Arduino platforms. For more information, please see the contest’s article on CS2N or the contest homepage on Parallax’s website.

“The U.S. Army’s Telemedicine and Advanced Technology Research Center (TATRC), Carnegie Mellon University Entertainment Technology Center, and Parallax Inc are offering over $25,000 in prizes to inspire the next generation of medical innovation. The 2013 National microMedic contest is an opportunity to show the country what citizens can do with new technology – encouraging technical innovation with significant use of microcontrollers and sensors in the medical industry. This contest is perfect practical application for STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math) students around the nation.

The 2013 National microMedic Contest will create significant interest around new open-source medical applications. TATRC’s Dr. Brett Talbot, Medical Simulation Portfolio Manager, says about the contest “we’re looking for microcontroller-based projects for the health and medical simulation community that combine the latest use of sensors, 3D printing, CNC and science disciplines. This is a call to action for inventive people to put our skills to use for the benefit of Army personnel and civilians.”

Inventors and students are encouraged to participate by creating medical applications and products for possible use in the healthcare industry, medical simulation training, and the battlefield. STEM teachers are encouraged to get their classes involved. Over 100 free contest kits valued at over $40,000 will be given away on a first come first serve basis to qualified applicants. Use your favorite microcontroller or apply to receive a free kit that includes either the Parallax multi-core Propeller chip or a shield for use with the Arduino microcontroller. The kit also contains various sensors, LED displays, infrared emitters, a blood pressure cuff, heart rate monitor and many other components to spark your imagination. Use of the official contest kit is not required to win.

To help get competitors started Parallax Inc. is hosting resources such as mini tutorials with code examples for sensors, lists of application ideas and an online discussion forum specific to the microMedic National contest where contestants can ask questions and collaborate. Applicants have until July 31st, 2013 to submit their microMedic entries. Over $25,000 in prizes will be awarded to 17 educational winners and 8 winners from the public category. The award ceremony will be held in September 2013 at the TATRC Innovation Lab in Fort Detrick, MD. For more information on the 2013 microMedic Contest visit Parallax’s website.”

Back in April, we did an unboxing for the VEX Cortex Speaker which we blogged about, here.

Since then we have had many requests for an updated guide on how to play custom audio files through the Cortex Speakers. Today, the wait is finally over. We have updated our wiki pages to include an in-depth guide on how to convert a sound file into a Cortex-usable format using the open source program, Audacity [link].

Once the file is formatted and downloaded to the Cortex properly, the ‘PlaySoundFile(“filename.wav”)’ command is used to access the audio file and play it through the speaker port (example shown below).

task main()
{

//Play a Sound File (need to use the File Management to Upload First)
PlaySoundFile("1.wav");
wait1Msec(1000);

}

If you are interested in the Cortex Speaker and what can be played through it, check out the VEX forum post about playing Nyan Cat through the VEX Cortex speaker. As an added holiday bonus, how about the 12 Days of Christmas?

We are continually updating and improving all of our support material; if there is anything you think would make ROBOTC more accessible, don’t hesitate to comment below!