I'm not a big fan of robots like this but damn, Taran did a fantastic job here. I want him to be in front of the camera more often. The whole video presentation was just superb. The editing, the camera, the sound, the stage for the robot, the script, everything was perfect. Good job.
+Popcorn I feel he was too formal if you ask me, I prefer the more relaxed reviews but Taran is like a news caster with little emotion in this video, I dont dislike him I just feel like the others do a better job.
Regarding RobotC: yes, Taran, that's what becoming a programmer is like. You get the development software, you look at some examples, you spend a great deal of time trying to figure out just what the fuck's going on... and after a lot of poking, testing and reading, you'll grow an understanding of the system. Depending on your persistence, becoming productive in a new programming language can take anywhere from a month to a few years. Becoming a master programmer can take anywhere from 20 years to a lifetime of work. This is true regardless of the language or the specific discipline you're pursuing. Thinking you understand something fully is a clear sign that you still have a lot to learn. This is coming from someone with 20 years of programming experience, and about 8 years of professional experience. The road ahead is long. Start as soon as you can, kids.
@@dirozx way to miss the point. Having the documentation does not make you proficient at any particular language, framework or associated discipline. Reading, understanding and applying the knowledge contained in that documentation and developing the right mindset to be able to learn and to understand it in the first place is the hard part. Computing is one of those things that looks deceptively simple on the surface.
My highschool was a member of the Project Lead The Way curriculum and there was a robotics class in which we did 3 things: Programmed a robot arm that you may find in an assembly line or other industrial situation, program a CNC machine to cut designs into wax blocks (and a wooden block for the final), and program on a VEX Cortex with Robot C. Other than making the CNC mill play a song while it cut, programming on the VEX Cortex was the most fun I had in that class (and the most useful thing I did in that class). Learning Robot C partially on my own was fun. The teacher would tell us how to do certain things and nudge us in the right direction if we were encountering problems with the code, but we learned the rest ourselves. It was a great introduction to programming logic and knowing when to use while, if, and if-else statements. I even got to catch up on my soldering skills in that class as the most common cause for broken motors, other than stripped gears, was disconnected leads. I got to open 'em up and solder them back down when I finished the curriculum for the semester! The only engineering class I had more fun in was a class about digital logic (more soldering and building basic circuits with and, or, not, nand, nor, etc).
Hey Taran! I love it when you are in front of the camera everything here was perfect and you are a great host! I was also on a VEX Robotics team in highschool and our team actually made it all the way to the state competition.
Fantastic job Taran. As someone who helps run an FRC team and is familiar with VEX robotics, you did a great job explaining all of the points that I was unsure of when I first heard about the kit.
I had a kit that was basically a set of electrical components with easy wire connectors through a piece of cardboard. The manual had dozens and dozens of cool instructions for projects, and I basically made a burglar alarm to keep my parents out of my room, and an AM radio to transmit orders to my Action Men. When I got a chemistry set, I almost exclusively used it to combine vinegar and baking soda, which was endlessly fascinating - there were a lot of spots on the ceiling, from where corks had shot out of test tubes and whacked against it. Twelve year old me would go mad for this.
While I personally never was on a VEX team, I was on the FIRST FRC Robotics Team 20, a high school level robotics competition. That program inspired me to pursue my current career job as a CAD Technician. I now go back and mentor the team who taught me so much. Robots have feelings too!
This video was the most professional, thorough and well scripted video I have ever seen on LinusTechTips. You can tell Taran has a strong passion for this stuff.
my highschool worked with Vex EDR. they were a joy to tinker with. at the start of every week we were given problems that we would solve with making a robot. so we had 4 days to build and on the final day a competition to see which robot solved the problem with the most efficiency. got me to love programming and im now in Uni doing Comp sci.
Hey Taran, I was in our robotics club in High School, we built a 75lb autonomous sumo bot (push the other bot out of the ring style competition). I was a freshman, and the other 3 seniors in the group did most of the work. The bot was programmed on a BASIC development board, and featured touch touch sensors along the borders, light sensors at the front (for line tracking the border of the ring), and a hydraulic lifter made out of 2 huge syringes and windshield washer pumps. The lifter was completely overkill, it could easily lift more than twice it's weight. We could stand on the end of the wedge and the bot would lift us off the ground. At the competition, our bot lost 3 times in a row, and was disqualified. Primarily our problems stemmed from simply being too darn complicated. At our third and last fight, it turned out our side touch sensors had been swapped in the code, and the bot would turn away when there was a collision, instead of turning towards the bot and pushing it out of the ring. The bot that ended up winning the competition used a Mindstorms controller as the brain (and not an NXT series, the 1st generation Mindstorms controller).
I can not give enough praise to Taran here, this video was beautifully done and he is very well spoken, overall an A+, great job Taran i hope to see you again soon!
This video was sooo good. The comedy, the script, the in depth-analysis, literally everything. Definitely want to see Taran on more videos. He's improved so much since the first few times. #TaranTechTips
Surely this kit is a pretty good value for the money but Legos are way better refined than this. Also if you already have Lego Techincs around you can integrate them with the Mindstorm. The metal axis are not overkill at all, beliveve me. I've bent some long Lego plastic axis and couldn't manage to make them straight again unfortunately. Other than that my Legos took a massive beat during many years but they still work perfectly, I'm not sure this kit could resist as much.
+TommyThousandFaces it is good quality metal, but in the vex robotics tournaments, these axles get put under loads of over 20 pounds sometimes. Even more if it's being smashed against something, which happens often.
I've been part of my school's Robotics Club for over 3 years now. We used the 3 iterations of the Lego Mindstorms. But as a student, all the kits can only be accessed in school. I've been thinking of saving up for the EV3 set as my personal practice kit but then I saw this and makes me want to buy the VEX instead. Thank you so much Taran for this detailed review. Hope to see more Robotics-oriented videos from you in the future! ^_^
One thing that is nice about mindstorms is the Labview compatability. It is powerful and easy to use, and the larger main program is used in many proffesional settings.
Former VEX iq competitor here, i can say that the new generation of vex iq software is very good, its very simple to use yet the amount if stuff you can do with it is incredible, 10/10 would recomend
Taran is SUCH a thorough and interesting reviewer! I agree. He should do more reviews on this segment of technology. Definitely got me interested in teaching my children robotics/programming. Great people working at LMG! Dream Job!
Being in the FIRST FRC program in high school makes all this stuff look so cute. I do like how my middle school had a hybrid of vex components but metal chassis for their game.
I would love to see you review the VEX V5 Competition kits. It may not be as practical for the average person given that they are several hundred dollars but they do fix a lot of the problems you mentioned with VEX IQ.
Taran is really quite good at presenting videos. I thought he'd be awkward (sorry dude) but he is actually very professional with the right amount of humour and information. I'm impressed. More Taran!
That's my robot at 11:14 we set the world record for that years competition. I'm really glad you guys reviewed this it really is an awesome learning tool and competition.
Programmer here, You complained quite a bit about the lack of tutorials on RobotC, but all I can say is; Welcome to the wonderfull world of programming. When trying to learn the more advanced programming languages and API's its quite normal to only have the documentation as a reference and nothing else. Its on the programmer to learn the language on his/her own. That is probably one of the reasons why programming is such a lucrative profession, as not many people have the patience to learn and study a complex skill such as programming. The rest of the video was awesome Taran! Looking forward to see more videos by you!
+Taran Van Hemert Good point, I think you are definitely correct if its intended for kids that want to learn programming itself without any prior programming knowledge. I myself learned programming from tutorials and books as well. It was not until later, when learning the more advanced languages that I had to scan through endless documentation without any help. By the way, cool to see you and Berkel have Dutch last names, as I am dutch myself. I guess thats pretty common in Canada right?
You said you could not build a useful robot with it, the fact that i used a homemade mindstorm "robot" to control my shutters according to the amound of sunlight determined that that was a lie!
+muh1h1 Please do tell me how to make one. I have that set, but i'm not creative enough to make robots without instructions. So now i just leave it to dust.
Ariq Fauzan I had one of these shutters with a looped cord thingimabob, and i used 2 motors connected with a shaft and a rubber wheel in between as a whinch, i used a lightsensor to measure the amound of light every 10 seconds or so and calculated the avarage of the last 15 values or something, so that when the lightlevel is too high, the shutters would move halfway down and if it is too low, they would move all the way down (for sleeping). i also used one "button sensor" thing as the endstop for top and bottom using a cord and a rather desperate but working lever system (so i could use one button for both endstops). It would really pretty easily buld, and i was kind of useful :)
very awesome. What i tried to make is like a door locker thingy (if you watched the first the amazing spiderman you would understand). It never works, so i'm probably gonna try your thing here. which lego do you have though?
Ariq Fauzan i had the NXT, which i think is the second generation of lego mindstorms (after the NCX). Pretty sure this would work with everything apart from the RCX, since its motors are probably too weak and don't have an encoder...
As a mentor for FIRST Robotics Team 1646, im very glad to see you mention the FTC level of FIRST. Now all you need to do is interview or visit a FRC team and all levels of FIRST will have been seen here. (Lego Mindstorms, VEX, and then Machine Fabrication.)
+Winston Caeser I looked into it, but what Taran didn't cover about the text base, was the much MUCH wider ability list, so first of, line tracking with graphical can not always work, because you have to guess the values, with text base you can take a reading of white, and set that to light, take a reading of black, and set that to dark, take the light plus the dark divide that by 2 and call that threshold, now you can tell it something like if colorsensorgreyscale is greater then threshold, set motor 6(witch is generally the right wheel) to 75 and set motor 1 (witch is left wheel) to fifty, and viceverca if colorsensorgreyscale is less then. second you can do & and or commands, for example you can do something like if distance sensor on the front is greater then like 1000 mm && bump switch is not activated, go forward, or if the distance sensor on the front is less then 1000 mm || (||= or by the way) bumpswich = 1 go backward, witch you can't do with graphical
I wish I had a fraction of this robotics stuff when I was a kid , can't believe I was so happy playing with Paint in my 1-hour-a-week computer class :P
those mettle axles are the VEX Achilles heel. ive worked with both mindstorms and vex as demos at a county fair and the vex kit, while being super fun for the kids because hey could control it, spent a lot of time backstage with me because the screws and axles kept coming undone by the vibration of driving on pavement. also vex sent us two identical kits so we could only use one at a time because the radio controllers were locked on the same channel for bolt bots and we had no replacement transmitter/receiver. the lego kit was more reliable, but was unable to be controlled by the kids so yeah. i'd personally wait until vex fixes this problem with the axles, screws, and standoffs because you shouldn't have to use locktight on a robotics kit
VEX IQ really hit a home run with this, this is great. I would love seeing this being used in 4th-6th grade class rooms, teaching children the basics of problem solving with graphical programming or building something that you can manipulate via code to do things.
I used to work a TON with Vex IQ and even participated in a few tournaments. Our team won a few 2nd places and I think a 1st place. This week, I was part of a robotics camp with Texas Instruments and Texas A&M and we built line following DSTR robots from scratch using TI's Innovator system for programming. It's kinda like an Arduino but easier and doesn't even require a computer, only a TI Nspire graphing calculator!
Great video Taran! I always feel that these kits promise "easy to use for kids", but as a tech implementator (that a word?) at schools myself, I know that the reality of classrooms is very different, things need to work out of the box, no "serial" errors, no firmware errors, nothing like that. Older teens might be able to deal with that, but the younger kids need a more easygoing experience or they will loose interest in the project out of frustration.
+k1ll3rM same here the one shown on youtube not the one that I have some how they are different I don't know how though the one on youtube is basicly this without the programming part and the hands on part but those are also important to young ppl to know
I'm surprised how good he was at presenting this video. Confident and sounds enthusiastic and excited about the product while also making fair criticisms.
+any1alive they just dropped the tiers system, made matches less balanced, and helicopter blades are OP :/ it used to be very well balanced but now it's just a walkover
I use the vex edr kit in school. We don't use instructions but are expected to teach ourselves either through mixing different parts and seeing if they work, or using the internet for ideas and tutorials and such.
this is soo cool. I am in Vex (Vex VRC which is metal parts) and my school teaches a VexIQ course. It is so awesome that one of my subs is interested in Vex
I did VEX competitively for three years in high school. Interesting to hear an "outsider" opinion on it. Also, you said it could last years. Maybe it's just because we were in a different context, but we use a ton of materials. Our team (with 5 sub teams) went through half a dozen kits or more every year. And that's not counting specialized parts and metal part refills.
We use vex edr in my high school and it really is a self teach class. Its also really fun and just the basic kit is enough to do alot. So far my group has made a 4 wheeled robot that can turn all the way around in a square foor area. It also has a claw on the front. For fun we drive the robot to our desk chairs and grab onto the chair and sit our feet on the robot and pull our slefs around the room. Which just shows how strong the motors really are.
when I was a kid in school, there was no robotics club, but we did have rocketry and shooting rockets off during recess was so fun and made so many other kids want to join :) It's also something I'm thinking about getting my daughter into when she get's a little bit older, another year or two.. and robotics another year or two as well...
This is a great video. I'm teaching Robotics at the school I work at. We've got the educational set for EV3 that the students love. We also have Edisons that read barcodes and can been programmed from a tablet/ phone using the audio out cable. VEX are now on my... I mean the classes wishlist... More like these please!
Wow, that is a pretty awesome video. I bet that cost you quite a lot of time to make, it shows. I wish you made more videos like this. This was the best video I seen on this channel in a while.
I am part of my schools robotics club and we use Vex EDR. My school hosts the biggest high school league in the state of California (sultana high school) and we have four competing teams. Each team has one detonated programmer, when you say there are very few programmers you are definitely correct. Please review Vex EDR!!
I was on a FLL team last fall and made it to the statewide competition. It was my 5th year on a team like that and I ended up learning a ton about mechanical engineering.
I've commented on multiple videos about hating the orange backdrop and asking to bring back a kitchen theme (even green screen it in) because it felt more inviting.....but you know, I'm really liking this new background they have put together with the map and other items :)
I had to re watch this since the first time I saw you review it Taran, you did a great job explaining about the many kits and the options as well as talk to the teacher who re enforced what I think we all know more of this type of learning/developmental toys are needed to get the kids today engaged in the learning process in a fun and educational way with out them thinking they are actually learning because if we don't start helping the next generation learn better and gain the skills they need to be competitive in the global world then sadly the quality of life goes down very fast as we all know. I will be awaiting your next Video Taran, keep up the cool-factor young man. Cow }:-o)
I've always wanted to do stuff like this. Like, all my life. The thing is that I've never learned how to start with it. This was a VERY helpful video, and I'm impressed by Tarans performance here! I enjoyed every second of the video, and that is quite rare for me these days. Well done Taran, hope to see more from you in front of the camera teaching me useful stuff! :D
I love the perspective this video gives, with those current kits I think you have identified almost all of the key issues. I'm deeply involved with VEX and I think a new video along with the new kits would be wonderful. I'll just drop my key points below. 1. The new V5 EDR kits are so much more powerful and can accomplish some incredible stuff, with a lot less bugs. 2. The new VEX Coding application is so much better! It's based around C, and has many tutorials both basic and quite advanced! 3. LTT should 100% Attend the VEX robotics WORLDS championships. (I'll be there, should HMU). 4. Going to these tournaments is a hugely different experience, and you can really see how beneficial VEX really is for many students. (Myself included, I have gained countless opportunities). 5. You should pick up the new V5 EDR kits, they're very difficult to come across, even if you could borrow one. (I would assist, but I am in AUS...) I really hope you read this... I am doubtful but very hopeful.
I'm in my highschool vex robotics team and will compete in regional tournaments. roboticC has been messing up for 2 months and it was because of the firmware updates. it was only today that we actually could properly program our robots.
We used the vex kits in a highschool robotics class. We had a robot c textbook that explained how to program the robots using the "text based" version.
Good to see some Taran and I love the content shift of late. Taran, I'm in my 30s (not he aim of this product) but this has certainly inspired me to get into one of these! Great value and so many possibilities! I figure I may as well contribute to the pending Apocalypse too :P
this is the first time I have looked into "robotics" . I was looking for consumer models so figured toys would be good place to start. anyways... THIS IS A GREAT VIDEO!!! I couldnt think of 1 thing you didn't mention it question I would have that you didn't answer. I profession in other hobbies and I can tell you are very knowledgeable in this and it helps a lot :)
There's other robotics competitions out there, both with Mindstorms, and with like bare metal and real world robot parts. They're run by an organization called FIRST, the lego one is First Lego League (FLL). The First Robotics Competition, or FRC, is aimed at high school students and happens in the spring. If you're in high school and into this stuff, find or start a team. When I was in high school, our largest robot was 6 feet tall, about 150 pounds, it stacked trash cans.
I'm not a big fan of robots like this but damn, Taran did a fantastic job here. I want him to be in front of the camera more often. The whole video presentation was just superb. The editing, the camera, the sound, the stage for the robot, the script, everything was perfect. Good job.
+Popcorn
If you really love robots I rocomend you to join the FIRST program its graet im in the FRC
+Ranlu911 Obviously, i'm also a part of the financial reporting council...
+Popcorn I saw Taran in the lego cup video and thought this exact thing
+Popcorn I feel he was too formal if you ask me, I prefer the more relaxed reviews but Taran is like a news caster with little emotion in this video, I dont dislike him I just feel like the others do a better job.
+Popcorn I agree, my top 3 are:
1: Linus
2: Luke/Taran
3: Everyone else rofl
TaranTechTips INBOUND!
wildfartanz
Taran needs to be in more vids he's really well spoken and a mix between knowledgeable and quirky egnough to do it anyways
+djrollin212 He does the most in depth reviews on the channel I'd say.
agreed. taran is awesome.
Yup.
Came here to say this. Taran rocks.
+djrollin212 They should do a Taran PC build guide exactly like they did with Linus Jr. put him on a cart and let him pick random components :D
Awesome video, great job, Taran.
Best ad for Ting on youtube. I love taran
yeaaaah Taran should make more vids
Great video, clear voice, well presented. Keep it up we want more !
Really impressed with Taran here. :)
i only came for Taran
+SquideARN How long?
+SquideARN ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
+SquideARN I came on Taran too.
+SquideARN I came for Protoss. Badum tss.
This dude is good at presenting, nice work man! ;)
Regarding RobotC: yes, Taran, that's what becoming a programmer is like. You get the development software, you look at some examples, you spend a great deal of time trying to figure out just what the fuck's going on... and after a lot of poking, testing and reading, you'll grow an understanding of the system. Depending on your persistence, becoming productive in a new programming language can take anywhere from a month to a few years. Becoming a master programmer can take anywhere from 20 years to a lifetime of work.
This is true regardless of the language or the specific discipline you're pursuing. Thinking you understand something fully is a clear sign that you still have a lot to learn.
This is coming from someone with 20 years of programming experience, and about 8 years of professional experience. The road ahead is long. Start as soon as you can, kids.
Lol what? Any decent programming, framework, library etc should have some basic documentation.
@@dirozx way to miss the point. Having the documentation does not make you proficient at any particular language, framework or associated discipline. Reading, understanding and applying the knowledge contained in that documentation and developing the right mindset to be able to learn and to understand it in the first place is the hard part.
Computing is one of those things that looks deceptively simple on the surface.
@@peterjohnson9438 read the comment again.
My highschool was a member of the Project Lead The Way curriculum and there was a robotics class in which we did 3 things: Programmed a robot arm that you may find in an assembly line or other industrial situation, program a CNC machine to cut designs into wax blocks (and a wooden block for the final), and program on a VEX Cortex with Robot C. Other than making the CNC mill play a song while it cut, programming on the VEX Cortex was the most fun I had in that class (and the most useful thing I did in that class). Learning Robot C partially on my own was fun. The teacher would tell us how to do certain things and nudge us in the right direction if we were encountering problems with the code, but we learned the rest ourselves. It was a great introduction to programming logic and knowing when to use while, if, and if-else statements. I even got to catch up on my soldering skills in that class as the most common cause for broken motors, other than stripped gears, was disconnected leads. I got to open 'em up and solder them back down when I finished the curriculum for the semester! The only engineering class I had more fun in was a class about digital logic (more soldering and building basic circuits with and, or, not, nand, nor, etc).
Hey Taran! I love it when you are in front of the camera everything here was perfect and you are a great host! I was also on a VEX Robotics team in highschool and our team actually made it all the way to the state competition.
Great job, Taran!
I really love Taran's vids.
Fantastic job Taran. As someone who helps run an FRC team and is familiar with VEX robotics, you did a great job explaining all of the points that I was unsure of when I first heard about the kit.
"Targeted to Elementary to middle school students"
Lets let Taran take a look at it.
I had a kit that was basically a set of electrical components with easy wire connectors through a piece of cardboard. The manual had dozens and dozens of cool instructions for projects, and I basically made a burglar alarm to keep my parents out of my room, and an AM radio to transmit orders to my Action Men.
When I got a chemistry set, I almost exclusively used it to combine vinegar and baking soda, which was endlessly fascinating - there were a lot of spots on the ceiling, from where corks had shot out of test tubes and whacked against it.
Twelve year old me would go mad for this.
Stuff like this makes me excited to have kids one day.
martinshoosterman Awww. :)
martinshoosterman tbh people like you warm my heart
Aren't you a kid now?
:)
Someone that actually wants to have kids : )
While I personally never was on a VEX team, I was on the FIRST FRC Robotics Team 20, a high school level robotics competition. That program inspired me to pursue my current career job as a CAD Technician. I now go back and mentor the team who taught me so much. Robots have feelings too!
This is what happens when Taran is part of the video, and edits it at the same time.
This video was the most professional, thorough and well scripted video I have ever seen on LinusTechTips. You can tell Taran has a strong passion for this stuff.
Taran did an excellent job on this review. 10/10 robotic axles!!!
my highschool worked with Vex EDR. they were a joy to tinker with. at the start of every week we were given problems that we would solve with making a robot. so we had 4 days to build and on the final day a competition to see which robot solved the problem with the most efficiency. got me to love programming and im now in Uni doing Comp sci.
Such professionalism from Tarren on this one, was like listening to a salesman.
Hey Taran, I was in our robotics club in High School, we built a 75lb autonomous sumo bot (push the other bot out of the ring style competition). I was a freshman, and the other 3 seniors in the group did most of the work. The bot was programmed on a BASIC development board, and featured touch touch sensors along the borders, light sensors at the front (for line tracking the border of the ring), and a hydraulic lifter made out of 2 huge syringes and windshield washer pumps. The lifter was completely overkill, it could easily lift more than twice it's weight. We could stand on the end of the wedge and the bot would lift us off the ground.
At the competition, our bot lost 3 times in a row, and was disqualified. Primarily our problems stemmed from simply being too darn complicated. At our third and last fight, it turned out our side touch sensors had been swapped in the code, and the bot would turn away when there was a collision, instead of turning towards the bot and pushing it out of the ring. The bot that ended up winning the competition used a Mindstorms controller as the brain (and not an NXT series, the 1st generation Mindstorms controller).
God Taran, you are fantastic. Great high quality video, fantastic editing nice amount of personality, you should be in front of the camera more often!
I can not give enough praise to Taran here, this video was beautifully done and he is very well spoken, overall an A+, great job Taran i hope to see you again soon!
I really like Taran as a reviewer, it's detailed and pushes hard on the bad and the extra mile with the interview. That's gold.
This video was sooo good. The comedy, the script, the in depth-analysis, literally everything. Definitely want to see Taran on more videos. He's improved so much since the first few times.
#TaranTechTips
Surely this kit is a pretty good value for the money but Legos are way better refined than this. Also if you already have Lego Techincs around you can integrate them with the Mindstorm.
The metal axis are not overkill at all, beliveve me. I've bent some long Lego plastic axis and couldn't manage to make them straight again unfortunately. Other than that my Legos took a massive beat during many years but they still work perfectly, I'm not sure this kit could resist as much.
Zachoak Gaming I wasn't really expecting that. I thought it is a good quality metal that can flex and not bend.
+TommyThousandFaces Probably not tempered correctly.
+TommyThousandFaces best metal axes I've seen are from Fischertechnik, german quality ftw :D
+TommyThousandFaces it is good quality metal, but in the vex robotics tournaments, these axles get put under loads of over 20 pounds sometimes. Even more if it's being smashed against something, which happens often.
Axles*
Right as the intro started I was like, "Please make it say TeranTechTips..." and I screamed "YES!" when it did. Good job editor(s).
YES TARAN! Let him do more videos in the future, he's the face of this company
I've been part of my school's Robotics Club for over 3 years now. We used the 3 iterations of the Lego Mindstorms. But as a student, all the kits can only be accessed in school. I've been thinking of saving up for the EV3 set as my personal practice kit but then I saw this and makes me want to buy the VEX instead. Thank you so much Taran for this detailed review. Hope to see more Robotics-oriented videos from you in the future! ^_^
Wow Taran is very well spoken and makes a great presenter, and he's funny too!
One thing that is nice about mindstorms is the Labview compatability. It is powerful and easy to use, and the larger main program is used in many proffesional settings.
I'm liking taran doing videos~ very professional~
Former VEX iq competitor here, i can say that the new generation of vex iq software is very good, its very simple to use yet the amount if stuff you can do with it is incredible, 10/10 would recomend
This man is the smartest guy in LMG
DAVID DOUILLET SO TRU
Taran is SUCH a thorough and interesting reviewer! I agree. He should do more reviews on this segment of technology. Definitely got me interested in teaching my children robotics/programming. Great people working at LMG! Dream Job!
Taran is great choice for these videos!
Being in the FIRST FRC program in high school makes all this stuff look so cute. I do like how my middle school had a hybrid of vex components but metal chassis for their game.
Can you review the VEX EDR set?
I would really enjoy more videos like this: To review and present robotics and stuff and I would actually leave it as TaranTechTips! Great job!
Moar Taran. Taran is love, Taran is life.
I would love to see you review the VEX V5 Competition kits. It may not be as practical for the average person given that they are several hundred dollars but they do fix a lot of the problems you mentioned with VEX IQ.
Lego Mindstorms, although more expensive, is a little more foolproof. You can build a stronger and smoother operating robot with Lego.
Taran is really quite good at presenting videos. I thought he'd be awkward (sorry dude) but he is actually very professional with the right amount of humour and information. I'm impressed. More Taran!
I thought when he said "Cook you dinner" He said "put you down" and now I wan't a robot that will just constantly insult you.
1. Get linux
2. Enable the insult option in sudo
3. Get insulted every time you mistype your password
4. ???
5. Profit
Dylan Dreisbach *want
Why do you need to buy a robot for that? The world does it for free for me
Teaching a robot to "put you down" is how it all starts.
That's my robot at 11:14 we set the world record for that years competition. I'm really glad you guys reviewed this it really is an awesome learning tool and competition.
do you wanna build a robot, it doesnt have to be a robot. okay byee
+Little Brat Gaming - William Waffle There is something wrong with your fur.
+Doge ` Or maybe youre just too hairy?
+Zia Mahomed plot twist
Programmer here,
You complained quite a bit about the lack of tutorials on RobotC, but all I can say is; Welcome to the wonderfull world of programming. When trying to learn the more advanced programming languages and API's its quite normal to only have the documentation as a reference and nothing else. Its on the programmer to learn the language on his/her own. That is probably one of the reasons why programming is such a lucrative profession, as not many people have the patience to learn and study a complex skill such as programming.
The rest of the video was awesome Taran! Looking forward to see more videos by you!
+Taran Van Hemert Good point, I think you are definitely correct if its intended for kids that want to learn programming itself without any prior programming knowledge. I myself learned programming from tutorials and books as well. It was not until later, when learning the more advanced languages that I had to scan through endless documentation without any help.
By the way, cool to see you and Berkel have Dutch last names, as I am dutch myself. I guess thats pretty common in Canada right?
You said you could not build a useful robot with it, the fact that i used a homemade mindstorm "robot" to control my shutters according to the amound of sunlight determined that that was a lie!
+muh1h1 Please do tell me how to make one. I have that set, but i'm not creative enough to make robots without instructions. So now i just leave it to dust.
Ariq Fauzan
I had one of these shutters with a looped cord thingimabob, and i used 2 motors connected with a shaft and a rubber wheel in between as a whinch, i used a lightsensor to measure the amound of light every 10 seconds or so and calculated the avarage of the last 15 values or something, so that when the lightlevel is too high, the shutters would move halfway down and if it is too low, they would move all the way down (for sleeping). i also used one "button sensor" thing as the endstop for top and bottom using a cord and a rather desperate but working lever system (so i could use one button for both endstops).
It would really pretty easily buld, and i was kind of useful :)
very awesome. What i tried to make is like a door locker thingy (if you watched the first the amazing spiderman you would understand). It never works, so i'm probably gonna try your thing here. which lego do you have though?
Ariq Fauzan
i had the NXT, which i think is the second generation of lego mindstorms (after the NCX). Pretty sure this would work with everything apart from the RCX, since its motors are probably too weak and don't have an encoder...
Thanks! Will try this morning. Any pro-tips to make your own robots without instructions?
As a mentor for FIRST Robotics Team 1646, im very glad to see you mention the FTC level of FIRST. Now all you need to do is interview or visit a FRC team and all levels of FIRST will have been seen here. (Lego Mindstorms, VEX, and then Machine Fabrication.)
try to reviiew the more advance vex robotic kit
Haven't posted a comment on a video before, but I just needed to say I am amazed at how well Taran did in this video. Hope to see more of him :)
I am on a vex iq team, it's a small team but I'm one of the lead programmers, our team made it to the world championships, we got 12 in programming.
I used text base with robot c
I can help teach u if u need it
+Jed Amundson I think that the First program is much much better, and you should check it out
+Winston Caeser I looked into it, but what Taran didn't cover about the text base, was the much MUCH wider ability list, so first of, line tracking with graphical can not always work, because you have to guess the values, with text base you can take a reading of white, and set that to light, take a reading of black, and set that to dark, take the light plus the dark divide that by 2 and call that threshold, now you can tell it something like if colorsensorgreyscale is greater then threshold, set motor 6(witch is generally the right wheel) to 75 and set motor 1 (witch is left wheel) to fifty, and viceverca if colorsensorgreyscale is less then. second you can do & and or commands, for example you can do something like if distance sensor on the front is greater then like 1000 mm && bump switch is not activated, go forward, or if the distance sensor on the front is less then 1000 mm || (||= or by the way) bumpswich = 1 go backward, witch you can't do with graphical
You can do that with graphical...
I wish I had a fraction of this robotics stuff when I was a kid , can't believe I was so happy playing with Paint in my 1-hour-a-week computer class :P
Did anyone else notice TaranTechTips?
those mettle axles are the VEX Achilles heel. ive worked with both mindstorms and vex as demos at a county fair and the vex kit, while being super fun for the kids because hey could control it, spent a lot of time backstage with me because the screws and axles kept coming undone by the vibration of driving on pavement. also vex sent us two identical kits so we could only use one at a time because the radio controllers were locked on the same channel for bolt bots and we had no replacement transmitter/receiver. the lego kit was more reliable, but was unable to be controlled by the kids so yeah. i'd personally wait until vex fixes this problem with the axles, screws, and standoffs because you shouldn't have to use locktight on a robotics kit
whos here from 2016 taran
SpecialSnowFlake me xD
Ya man
SpecialSnowFlake 2017 man
2016 is over
Susie Colandrea That was posted in 2016
VEX IQ really hit a home run with this, this is great. I would love seeing this being used in 4th-6th grade class rooms, teaching children the basics of problem solving with graphical programming or building something that you can manipulate via code to do things.
Anyone else sitting here thinking " man i feel sorry for the poor guy that has to write this stuff" I mean that's at least 10 min of typed dialog...
Me too...it's freaking terrible.
I used to work a TON with Vex IQ and even participated in a few tournaments. Our team won a few 2nd places and I think a 1st place.
This week, I was part of a robotics camp with Texas Instruments and Texas A&M and we built line following DSTR robots from scratch using TI's Innovator system for programming. It's kinda like an Arduino but easier and doesn't even require a computer, only a TI Nspire graphing calculator!
Robots can't do my job. I'm a programmer. They won't take my job until Skynet is born :P
+Magister Ogamesh they are robots that can program themselves.
Great video Taran!
I always feel that these kits promise "easy to use for kids", but as a tech implementator (that a word?) at schools myself, I know that the reality of classrooms is very different, things need to work out of the box, no "serial" errors, no firmware errors, nothing like that. Older teens might be able to deal with that, but the younger kids need a more easygoing experience or they will loose interest in the project out of frustration.
Reminds me of space engineers :P
+k1ll3rM same here the one shown on youtube not the one that I have some how they are different I don't know how though the one on youtube is basicly this without the programming part and the hands on part but those are also important to young ppl to know
By far the most professional, well though out and straight to the point video made by LinusMedia Group. Koodos to you Taran!
watch that video the fourth time
Great Video. Everything about the video was great: the research, the editing, and Taran on Screen! The segway was cool too
Is The Container Store a real thing?
Yup !!
It exists, and is literally a store where you buy storage items. Mainly plastic containers.
I'm surprised how good he was at presenting this video. Confident and sounds enthusiastic and excited about the product while also making fair criticisms.
Taran, Did you ever heard of Robocraft ? store.steampowered.com/app/301520/
that game is lifr
+Grimjaw T Fking love that game
Robocraft used to be good but now it's terrible. They ruined it D:
+barnstormer322 how did they ruin it>?
+any1alive they just dropped the
tiers system, made matches less balanced, and helicopter blades are OP :/ it used to be very well balanced but now it's just a walkover
I use the vex edr kit in school. We don't use instructions but are expected to teach ourselves either through mixing different parts and seeing if they work, or using the internet for ideas and tutorials and such.
DID I JUST SEE INTERNET EXPLORER?!?!?!? *SHAME ON YOU!*
thatscnot nice
this is soo cool. I am in Vex (Vex VRC which is metal parts) and my school teaches a VexIQ course. It is so awesome that one of my subs is interested in Vex
TeranRobotTips
I did VEX competitively for three years in high school. Interesting to hear an "outsider" opinion on it. Also, you said it could last years. Maybe it's just because we were in a different context, but we use a ton of materials. Our team (with 5 sub teams) went through half a dozen kits or more every year. And that's not counting specialized parts and metal part refills.
Anyone else is here from FIRST?
We use vex edr in my high school and it really is a self teach class. Its also really fun and just the basic kit is enough to do alot. So far my group has made a 4 wheeled robot that can turn all the way around in a square foor area. It also has a claw on the front. For fun we drive the robot to our desk chairs and grab onto the chair and sit our feet on the robot and pull our slefs around the room. Which just shows how strong the motors really are.
i was in EV3 school for 5 weeks im 10 and know how to write code for computers and robotis
when I was a kid in school, there was no robotics club, but we did have rocketry and shooting rockets off during recess was so fun and made so many other kids want to join :) It's also something I'm thinking about getting my daughter into when she get's a little bit older, another year or two.. and robotics another year or two as well...
#TaranTechTips
This is a great video. I'm teaching Robotics at the school I work at. We've got the educational set for EV3 that the students love. We also have Edisons that read barcodes and can been programmed from a tablet/ phone using the audio out cable. VEX are now on my... I mean the classes wishlist... More like these please!
Vex is cool and all, but it's no FIRST....
Wow, that is a pretty awesome video. I bet that cost you quite a lot of time to make, it shows. I wish you made more videos like this. This was the best video I seen on this channel in a while.
FRC is better
infinitelyExplosive YEEEES thank you!!
Yeah for high school, but vex IQ is better than FLL
I am part of my schools robotics club and we use Vex EDR. My school hosts the biggest high school league in the state of California (sultana high school) and we have four competing teams. Each team has one detonated programmer, when you say there are very few programmers you are definitely correct. Please review Vex EDR!!
I was on a FLL team last fall and made it to the statewide competition. It was my 5th year on a team like that and I ended up learning a ton about mechanical engineering.
soo frc or ftc now?
I've commented on multiple videos about hating the orange backdrop and asking to bring back a kitchen theme (even green screen it in) because it felt more inviting.....but you know, I'm really liking this new background they have put together with the map and other items :)
I'm kind of surprised how well Taran did with this video. Talk about thorough!
I had to re watch this since the first time I saw you review it Taran, you did a great job explaining about the many kits and the options as well as talk to the teacher who re enforced what I think we all know more of this type of learning/developmental toys are needed to get the kids today engaged in the learning process in a fun and educational way with out them thinking they are actually learning because if we don't start helping the next generation learn better and gain the skills they need to be competitive in the global world then sadly the quality of life goes down very fast as we all know. I will be awaiting your next Video Taran, keep up the cool-factor young man. Cow }:-o)
I've always wanted to do stuff like this. Like, all my life. The thing is that I've never learned how to start with it. This was a VERY helpful video, and I'm impressed by Tarans performance here! I enjoyed every second of the video, and that is quite rare for me these days.
Well done Taran, hope to see more from you in front of the camera teaching me useful stuff! :D
I love the perspective this video gives, with those current kits I think you have identified almost all of the key issues. I'm deeply involved with VEX and I think a new video along with the new kits would be wonderful. I'll just drop my key points below.
1. The new V5 EDR kits are so much more powerful and can accomplish some incredible stuff, with a lot less bugs.
2. The new VEX Coding application is so much better! It's based around C, and has many tutorials both basic and quite advanced!
3. LTT should 100% Attend the VEX robotics WORLDS championships. (I'll be there, should HMU).
4. Going to these tournaments is a hugely different experience, and you can really see how beneficial VEX really is for many students. (Myself included, I have gained countless opportunities).
5. You should pick up the new V5 EDR kits, they're very difficult to come across, even if you could borrow one. (I would assist, but I am in AUS...)
I really hope you read this... I am doubtful but very hopeful.
I did Robotics in high school, loved it so much!!! Awesome that ya'll are playing/building them!
I'm in my highschool vex robotics team and will compete in regional tournaments. roboticC has been messing up for 2 months and it was because of the firmware updates. it was only today that we actually could properly program our robots.
We used the vex kits in a highschool robotics class.
We had a robot c textbook that explained how to program the robots using the "text based" version.
Good to see some Taran and I love the content shift of late. Taran, I'm in my 30s (not he aim of this product) but this has certainly inspired me to get into one of these! Great value and so many possibilities! I figure I may as well contribute to the pending Apocalypse too :P
this is the first time I have looked into "robotics" . I was looking for consumer models so figured toys would be good place to start. anyways... THIS IS A GREAT VIDEO!!! I couldnt think of 1 thing you didn't mention it question I would have that you didn't answer. I profession in other hobbies and I can tell you are very knowledgeable in this and it helps a lot :)
There's other robotics competitions out there, both with Mindstorms, and with like bare metal and real world robot parts. They're run by an organization called FIRST, the lego one is First Lego League (FLL). The First Robotics Competition, or FRC, is aimed at high school students and happens in the spring. If you're in high school and into this stuff, find or start a team. When I was in high school, our largest robot was 6 feet tall, about 150 pounds, it stacked trash cans.