Showing posts with label Mindstorms. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Mindstorms. Show all posts

Sunday, August 14, 2016

Mindstorms EV3 - writing long programs

Week 4 - Programming your EV3: Part 3: Writing long programs)


This is a transcript of Prof Jennifer's Educational Robotics for Absolute Beginners. Greater details can be obtained from her video: More about the Software (Part 3: Writing long Programs)

Suppose you are creating a long program and is running out of space, one thing you can do is to use the pan tool Mindstorms EV3pan tool and drag the blocks around so you can get more space to add more blocks:

Mindstorms EV3 pan tool to drag blocks around

Drag the blocks to the left so you have more space at the end to add blocks. To stop panning, click the pan tool again.

Another neater way to get more space would be to break to sequence of blocks into 2 blocks, arrange them one above the other and use the sequence wire to connect them. Get out of the pan tool and click on the select tool Mindstorms EV3 select tool.

Click on one of the sequence plug to break the sequence of blocks

Mindstorms EV3 Sequence wire

Then you can use the select tool to bundle the separated sequence of block together and pull them down below the first blocks

Mindstorms EV3 sequence wire connect 2 separated sequences of blocks

However, the arrangement is not neat as the sequence wire runs through the blower blocks of codes. To make it less ugly, you can click the sequence connector (the other end of the sequence plug) to break the connection. Reconnect them by hovering the mouse over the sequence plug till you see a "spool of wire" then drag it down and then to the left till it align slightly in front of the lower sequence connector, pull it down then to the right to connect to the sequence connector and you will have a neater arrangement of a long program.

Sunday, November 15, 2015

LEGO Mindstorms EV3-G program blocks

The LEGO Mindstorms EV3 software is called EV3-G and works by drag-dropping graphic blocks in a line starting from the left to right. The first block on the left is always the START block


The blocks are organied by colored tabs into groups. There are 6 groups of programming blocks:
1. ACTION blocks
2. FLOW blocks
3. SENSOR blocks
4. DATA blocks
5. ADVANCED blocks
6. MY blocks (for putting frequently used blocks)

ACTION blocks


FLOW blocks


SENSOR blocks


DATA blocks


ADVANCED blocks


MY Blocks

Friday, September 18, 2015

Troubleshooting LEGO Mindstorms EV3

When EV3 brick encounter glitches, what to do?

1. EV3 brick dead after battery change: check battery springs
2. EV3 flashes red briefly then dies: defective battery. Get LEGO Education to replace
3. EV3 brick says "starting", then nothing:
a. remove battery and reinsert
b. hold down center and right buttons till display says "updating"
c. plug brick into computer via USB
d. go to Tools drop down menu and select "Firmware update"
4. EV3 brick stuck during firmware update: ....

Go to What to do when EV3 stops working.
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