ROBOTC.net Blog  

In preparation for the 2013 Robotics Summer of Learning, we’ve released updates for the Palm Island (v2.1.0), Operation Reset (v3.1.0), Curriculum Companion (v2.4.0), and Level Builder (v2.0.11) Virtual Worlds!

In Palm Island, Operation Reset, and the Curriculum Companion, we’ve added two highly-requested features: Graphics Quality Control and Update Notifications.

Graphics Quality Control
In the Options section of each virtual world, we’ve added a new Graphics Quality setting. Choosing LOW (FASTER) will reduce the visual quality of the virtual environment, but will allow the virtual worlds to run more smoothly on older computers. MEDIUM is the default setting and is a balanced choice between quality and speed on most computers. Choosing HIGH (SLOWER) will improve the visual quality and is the most resource intensive; it is only recommended if you have a newer computer with a dedicated graphics card.

Update Notifications
If your computer is connected to the Internet and you log in using your CS2N account in the virtual world, it will now check if there is a newer version of the virtual world available. If an update is available, a notification about the new version appears with a DOWNLOAD NOW button. Simply press it to download the latest version available!

RVW Level Builder
We also updated the RVW Level Builder! We have improved the performance of the menus and fixed an issue where line tracking tiles were getting “stuck” once they were placed. Thank you to everyone who has sent in feedback! We’ve also released a series of videos to help get started with the Level Builder:

Teacher Appreciation Week is May 6th – 10th and we are celebrating! We LOVE all teachers and appreciate everything they do for their students! Here at the Robotics Academy, we have a special place in our hearts for robotics teachers, mentors and coaches, so this year we want to make sure they get the attention they deserve.

Do you know an amazing robotics teacher, mentor, or coach? Let us know who they are and why they are AWESOME! Send us your best story, pictures, and/or video about this person to socialmedia@cs2n.org. We will share several of these stories on the CMU’s Robotics Academy blog during Teacher Appreciation Week. And the Top Three Stories, voted by us, will each WIN one Classroom Annual License for Robot Virtual Worlds for their teacher/mentor/coach!

Stories must be submitted by Wednesday, May 8th at 5pm Eastern Standard Time. We will announce the winners on Friday, May 10, 2013.

Please include contact information (name and email/school phone number) for the teacher, mentor, or coach that you’re writing about so we can make sure to get their permission to publish their name on our site. You can send any questions to socialmedia@cs2n.org.

We recently added a great new feature to our Robot Virtual Worlds … the Measurement Toolkit! There is no more guessing on how far a robot needs to travel to solve programming problems. It allows for intelligent path planning and navigation. You can now have students do the math, show their work, and explain how they solved the problems.

Check out our newest video that talks about what the measurement toolkit can do in RVW!

Join us for a fun Google Hangout tomorrow at 4pm EST on our ROBOTC’s Hangouts Page! We’ll announce the ROBOTC annual license winner from the Robot Virtual Worlds webinar series, answer questions, talk about ROBOTC 4.0, the World Competitions, and many other fun topics!

P.S. You still have time to fill out the surveys to be entered in the drawing (and find our 15% of RVW discount code.) Check out our webinar series on our YouTube page -http://www.youtube.com/robomatterinc

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.
 
 
 

Hey everyone! Hope you had an awesome weekend. Just a friendly reminder that we’ll be having another fun Robot Virtual Worlds’ Google Hangout at 6pm EST tonight. We will be talking about the gaming environment within RVW and showing off Palm Island, Operation Reset, the Measurement Toolkit, badges, and a lot more!  We look forward to having you attend and join in on the discussion! Visit http://ROBOTC.net/hangouts to join us and watch the live video stream.

P.S. Robot Virtual Worlds website has been revamped and is now live! Check it out at http://www.robotvirtualworlds.com

Hello! We are sorry for being so quiet on the blogs this week. We are in Anaheim, CA at the 2013 VEX World Championship! Below are some pictures from the last few days. Follow us on our ROBOTC Facebook and Twitter page for up-to-date pictures and videos all day.

If you are at VEX Worlds, stop by our booth, say hi, and try out Robot Virtual Worlds!

Next week, we will be at the FIRST Championship in St. Louis, MO!

Hey everyone! Just wanted to let you know we are changing the time for today’s Google Hangout webinar to 6pm EST. We will be talking about the Robot Virtual Worlds’ Level Builder and Model Importer! We hope you’re able to attend and join in on the discussion! Visit http://ROBOTC.net/hangouts to join us and watch the live video stream.