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Tutorial

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A short demonstration of what happens when you properly connect a Vex bot to a Lynx robot arm and have them work together through a single program with some added instruction as to how to do it.


For any connections between the two systems, you need a special chip [name inserted soon]. Once you have placed the chip on your breadboard, you need to connect the wires and jumper wires on the breadboard as shown. One pair of wires will have the white wire separated as the white wire will be connected to A or D on the Lynx circuit board. The red and black will be on either port 31 or 30. The other end of the wires will be connected to a vex cortex's digital (dgtl) port. We used 12 and 11.

Once you have connected the two systems via breadboard, you need to create a code (RobotC Vex) and a sequence (FlowBotics).

In Vex, you need to set up the port for the Lynx arm in the "digital" tab. The sensor type will be "Vex LED." You can name the port connected to A ArmStart and the port connected to D ArmStop. The code required to actually begin a sequence in FlowBotics is as follows:

TurnLEDOn (ArmStart) ;
wait (0.5) ;
TurnLEDOff (ArmStart) ;

Ensure that your platform type is set to Natural Language or else this will not work.
To stop the sequence at any moment, you use the same lines of code except with ArmStop.


In FlowBotics, you need to ensure that the arm is connected properly to your computer (each arm needs its own computer if you have more than one) and powered on. If you have problems, search the following website for troubleshooting

www.lynxmotion.com

Create a sequence in FlowBotics. Copy creates a new frame while record saves the arm's current position to the selected frame. You can save this sequence with the save button which is among the play and stop buttons. You can also load the sequence for future demonstrations. Ensure you have the same calibration set each time; arm calibration does not save!

Once you have a code in Vex set up without errors and a fully complete sequence in FlowBotics ready, start your program and test it out! Once the program reaches your TurnLEDOn line, your arm should begin its sequence.