What is an Arduino / microcontroller? An Arduino is a microcontroller, which is a computer system on a chip that does a job. It contains an integrated processor, a small amount of memory, and programmable input/output devices, which are used to interact with things connected to the chip. Microcontrollers can be program devices to sense […]

Question: How do I use block coding to program the onboard LED on an Arduino Uno? Answer: See Mr. Phan’s How-to video! He shows you how to do it in TinkerCAD, and this can be applied to real life as well. See the full playlist for his Arduino Control Systems and also the Arduino Control […]

Question: What is PWM, and how does it work to control a motor or any other output? Answer: PWM stands for Pulse Width Modulation and allows you to easily control an output in a digital system. Some things that you can control with it might be the speed of a DC motor, or the brightness […]

Leif Sorgule teaches high school technology courses in manufacturing, engineering, robotics, and material processing for Peru Central School District. Leif also teaches CAD and computer aided manufacturing part time as an Associate Professor at the Institute for Advanced Manufacturing at Clinton Community College. To contact Leif email sorgule@gmail.com or visit his website at www.sorgule.com.  Thanks […]

When you think about it, in manufacturing, controlling things is necessary to perform very complex tasks to manufacture items to tolerances finer than a human hair. Think about all of the systems that have to be controlled in a single work cell in a factory… then multiply it by 10’s or 100’s of cells. Mind […]

Question: There really isn’t one. Just this video with examples of a VEX Transfer System, a VEX hydraulic parts feeder, and a VEX hydraulic gripper.  5,628 total views,  4 views today

Question: How do I get my robot to work when I unplug my cortex from the computer? Solution: Just change the setting you see in the picture here, and you will be all set! After you change this it will ask you to power cycle your cortex. Just turn it off and back on again, […]

Problem: Natural Language disappeared from the function library on my students computer. How do I get it back? Solution: First off, why does RobotC do this? Who knows. Why isn’t Natural Language a default? Why is detailed preferences buried three menus deep? These are questions for other solutions. Secondly, watch the 2 minute video below […]

Problem: How do you handshake with two VEX Cortex’s? I can’t seem to get it to work! Solution: I had to call in the big guns on this one; Jim is a RobotC programmer extraordinaire. He put together the tutorial below.  Not only that, but he and I wrote the powerpoint and the teacher’s notes […]