I am a technical school engineering teacher. I have several years of experience in machine maintenance in a production setting with automation and as a ski lift mechanic. I would like to share those dynamics with my students. I would like to build an elaborate production system in my classroom integrating VEX and Lynxmotion AL5D robots since that is what I have for equipment. Flowarm is a fun and easy program to use, but it’s not designed for what I want to achieve. Is there a program that is more “industry like”, inexpensive, EASY to learn that is more appropriate for my end goal?
The AL5D is driven by an SSC-32 circuit board. What other programs will adapt to that?
The AL5D - PLTW arm comes with the SSC-32U servo controller, but you can also operate it with an Arduino-compatible BotBoarduino:
Other programs which can interface directly with the SSC-32U include:
There are no programs we are aware of (at least inherently) which can communicate with both VEX and the SSC-32U.
This having been said, the communication protocol of the SSC-32U us meant to be “human readable” and relatively easy to send serial commands to the controller.
Thank you for your help. Maybe Flowarm can do what I am thinking and I just don’t realize it. I want to build a conveyor belt that would transport a number of different colored blocks. I want to program a robot to insert each type of colored block into separate bins. If I had four different colors then I would need four separate programs (one for each type of colored block). I can get my VEX system to read the colors, but I need Vex to send Flowarm the correct signal to initiate the correct color sequence to then insert that block into the correct bin.
The conveyor above is compatible with an RC signal, though the color sensor is not compatible with the system (directly) and would need a separate microcontroller like the BotBoarduino above. The servo which drives the conveyor can be put into RC mode and controlled from the SSC-32U.
The FlowArm PLTW software does take inputs from the VEX Cortex system to trigger start / stop on sequences, which should do what you describe (trigger 1 associated with motion sequence and bin “Blue” for example). The trigger inputs are the analog pins in the middle of the board. Page 8 here:
At the bottom of the window of FlowArm PLTW, you will see the following:
Just above that, you’ll see:
Here, you can choose a specific sequence to start based on the function keys on the keyboard OR inputs E, F, G and H. Therefore if any of these four pins detects a “high” (from a digital pin), the corresponding sequence will start. Ensure that the connections between VEX and the SSC-32U include the digital pins as well as common ground (you only need one common ground pin).
You can experiment first by creating a sequence and assigning it to a keyboard function key, ensuring that it works, then changing that to an input pin.
