ROBOTC.net Blog  

Good news everyone! I’m excited to let you know that our latest batch of tutorials in the VEX Cortex Video Trainer are available now!

This set of 5 tutorials focuses on the VEX Line Tracking Sensors:

1. The Line Tracking Sensors – Introduces the sensors and explains how they work
2. Calculating Thresholds – Goes through the process of acquiring sensor values using the ROBOTC Sensor Debug window and calculating a threshold for the robot to distinguish light from dark
3. Basic Line Tracking – Opens, explains, and runs a basic line tracking sample program on the robot
4. Line Track for Distance – Modifies the sample program to line track for a number of encoder counts
5. Optimized Line Tracking – Explains how to modify motor speeds for tracking different types of lines

These tutorials will work with the new VEX Line Tracking Sensors (in the picture above), as well as the slightly larger, previous generation. To view them, open the VEX Cortex Video Trainer and head to the Sensing > Line Tracking section. Be on the look-out for additional programming challenges and activities using the line tracking sensors early next year.

As usual, the VEX Line Tracking Sensors can be purchased at the RobotMatter store. Happy Holidays everyone!

Part Lego, part Arduino, part BoeBot, this is Frankenfollower. This robot was programmed in ROBOTC for Arduino, a port that is still in alpha stage of development but can be used quite nicely for programming the Arduino Duemilenova.  Other Arduino variants will be supported very soon.

The Arduino port of ROBOTC has some really cool features:

• Easy to use sensor and motor configuration UI
• Breakpoints and a debugger
• Ability to watch your variables live
• Multiple tasks (4 at the time of writing)

I’ve taken some pictures of the UI, so you can have a look.  Please note that the appearance of these UIs will probably change before the final version, so keep that in mind.

Main UI with some code (Frankenfollower’s code, actually)	Debugger UI with variables window docked on the right.	First configuration tab. This one allowed you to configure the platform and possible shields (up to 3 at the moment)
Motor and servos are configured here.  Encoders are currently not supported.	Analogue pins are setup in this tab.	Digital pins can be configured as PWM, input and output.

So as you can see, it’s all quite functional at the moment.  I’ve made a small video with some additional pictures of Frankenfollower and some footage of it in action.

I’m sure I’ll expand on Frankenfollower in the next few weeks, so keep an eye out on my blog!

Original article featured here: [LINK].