{"id":3402,"date":"2019-09-11T12:41:44","date_gmt":"2019-09-11T10:41:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.mathworks.com\/student-lounge\/?p=3402"},"modified":"2019-09-10T17:49:16","modified_gmt":"2019-09-10T15:49:16","slug":"vex_worlds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.mathworks.com\/student-lounge\/2019\/09\/11\/vex_worlds\/","title":{"rendered":"Lessons from the World\u2019s Largest Robotics Competition"},"content":{"rendered":"

Today, Jose Avendano Arbelaez<\/a>\u00a0shares another guest post with us. Make sure you let us know your thoughts in the comments section.<\/p>\n

\u2013 \u2013<\/p>\n

How did you get into Robotics?<\/h1>\n

This is a question that I am often asked when I attend events as part of the MathWorks Student Competitions team. The simple answer is: Well, robots are cool\u2026 The longer answer would be that after starting a career in engineering I explored the different branches of mechanical engineering and found that I was the most passionate about automating things using electronics.<\/p>\n

But that is just my story. There are obviously many different reasons people end up being roboticists. For the generation of future robotics engineers, this decision starts as early as middle school!<\/p>\n

Catching Up with High School Education<\/h1>\n

There are many robotics student competitions held worldwide, but it wasn\u2019t until I started at my current role as a MathWorks Technical Evangelist that I got completely involved with them. High school institutions normally have extracurricular activities for popular sports like football and baseball, but to my surprise, it also turns out almost every high school now has a robotics program. Coming from a background in aerospace research I wasn\u2019t aware of how much work was put into this branch of STEM education. Some of these high school programs for robotics education are centered around curriculum and sometimes teachers and educators ask us about sharing reusable courseware related to Matlab<\/a> and Simulink. However, most STEM educators prepare students to compete in programs like BEST Robotics<\/a>, VEX Robotics<\/a>, FIRST Robotics<\/a> and RoboCupJunior<\/a>. Programming robots can sound like an intimidating task at first, especially for kids that are still learning algebra. So how is it that they decide to participate in robotics competitions?<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Figure:\u00a0Competition Event for VEX Robotics 2018 game \u201cTurning Point\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

From Video Games to Robots<\/h1>\n

Yes, video games are a great transition to robotics. Many of these competitions have students design, build and program teleoperated robots. This means that students remotely control the machines with use of a gamepad controller. This gamepad looks almost exactly like what they already use to play xBox or PlayStation so high school students are immediately captivated by the similarities these competitions have with their current interests. In fact, by talking to team members we found out that some of the students that control the robot are usually recruited because of their existing skills in video games. In fact, the gamepad controls are completely customized to the driver and can often be dynamic and change during the matches. Some of the BEST Robotics<\/a> students that use Simulink to program their robots surprise us every year with new creative ways to program their gamepads to be more competitive. The Simulink Design Award Winners<\/a> are always a great example of this innovation, You can check out our summary of the 2018 winning models<\/a> to see how high school students program different gamepad controls for their robots to account for dynamic speeds and automation of basic robot tasks.<\/p>\n

[VIDEO]\u00a0<\/strong>MATLAB and Simulink PASS Competitions Hub “BEST Simulink Design Award Winners 2017”<\/p>\n