Tips
Welcome to the helpful tips page. This page contains a variety of useful information and resources regarding the current season and other interesting topics worth discussing. There are four main sections to this page: Gears, Programming, Troubleshooting, and Helpful Links. You can click on the icons above to travel to those certain sections below. Enjoy!
Gears
Gears are not just used to transfer power; they also provide an opportunity to adjust the mechanical advantage of a mechanism. It is important to know the gear ratio/ mechanical advantage that each gear will provide you with so that when you build your robot, you are working smarter, not harder. Here, we show you the difference between the internal gears in a VEX motor and how to figure out your gear ratio, whether it is a compound gear or not.
Non-Compound Gear Ratio Example:
Driven Gear / Driving Gear = Ratio (36/12) * (60/36) = 5/1 = 5:1
The driving gear rotates 5 times faster than the driven gear.
Compound Gear Ratio Example:
Compound Gear Reduction = Reduction 1 x Reduction 2 = (60 / 12) * (60 / 12) = 25/1 = 25:1
The driving gear rotates 25 times faster than the driven gear.
INTERNAL MOTOR GEARING
Below are pictures of each gear to help you visualize which one is which. The turbo gears have the largest driving gear, and the smallest driven gear while the low-speed gears have the smallest driving gear and the largest driven gear.
TURBO SPEED
HIGH SPEED
LOW SPEED
Programming
Everyone should learn how to program because it can help you to expand your critical thinking skills, as well as make you more aware of how machines and devices work in our everyday life. Programming with RobotC is very simple, but it can also be difficult sometimes, and we are here to help you learn and provide you with some basic tips and coding examples which are updated periodically. Below you can find a sample code created by tabor473 on the VEX Forum which utilizes the VEX LCD screen to choose your autonomous mode before the match begins. Also, you can find some basic RobotC tips that can improve your programming experience. For additional help in RobotC, visit their video trainer website.
LCD Code Chooser
You can use the VEX LCD (Liquid Crystal Display) to view multiple stored program configurations and select between them. On the VEX Forum, Tabor473 created an LCD Code Chooser program that is much easier to program and understand than the sample program provided by VEX on RobotC. To view the program, click on the GitHub button below. To see the VEX forum thread which discusses the topic some more, click the VEX forum button below.
ROBOTC Basic Tips
Fix Formating: This button aligns the code and cleans it up so that you can see any visible mistakes such as extra brackets.
Compile Program: This button will compile the program without running it and will check for any mistakes.
Sample Programs: RobotC has hundreds of sample programs from which you can use and modify to your liking. They have programs for LCD, encoders, remote controls, and much more.
Troubleshooting
If something goes wrong with your robot during a competition or while practicing, these troubleshooting guides can help you pinpoint your problem and tell you how to fix it.
To open these guides, click on the document.
Helpful Links
Here are some links to websites that you may find helpful during the Change Up. Included is a database of every VEX team, the VEX Robotics community forum, the VEX Robotics website, the Change Up competition resources.
