Radio Shack VEX

can you give us some more information,
what is VEX supposed to be?

RIch

VEX is a new robotics invention system Radio Shack just started selling.
Couple of URLs below. It was developed with FIRST and now FIRST will be
having a 3rd competition based on the VEX system (to go along with their
other two, the original FIRST competition and the Lego Mindstorms one). The
kit seems pretty good so far. Metal portion is like a strong erector set.
Comes with motors and servos (they are pretty much standard servos but with
clutches and special mounting posts). Came with bump and switch sensors,
lots screws, wheels, gears, etc. It has a microcontroller with analog and
digital I/O, controls like 8 motors/servos, etc. It also comes with a 6
channel radio control, much like for an RC plane or helicopter. The radio
controller has an LCD display and you can make adjustments and select
various modes from it.

I will try to take some photos and post some info on my site. Until then,
these links can provide some basic info:

http://radioshack.com/
http://www.vexrobotics.com/

-Hoss
hossweb.com

That looks pretty sweet, but it says nothing about the size.  How big
approximately are the plates?  The official vex web site says they're
not going to be released for 8 days yet.  Anyone know if they're
releasing something different/better?

Also, it looks like its a lot cheaper if you buy all the parts seperate
and forget about the transmitter / receiver.  Does it look like it
would be difficult to run the motors without the transmitter /
receiver?

You could, but without the programming module, you would be extremly
limited. The module is preprogrammed for some basic usage, although most of
it is for interacting with the remote. But it does have a couple sensor
ports programmed for "autonomous use". Basically, a sensor plugged into one
of these will trigger a default action (reverse motor on motor port x). From
looking at the manual, it seems you can make a simple bot with two bump
switches on the front (left and right) and have it back up and turn when it
hits something.

-Hoss
hossweb.com

[...]

Cool! It seems they've finally brought back Mechano sets and
added robotics kit to it. Nice combination, in my mind.

--
Marc D.
(reply-to is black hole. Contact: list at ryuu in Canada)

I found a poster in the kit that I ignored at first (looked like it was just
promotional stuff) and when I looked on the back, it showed all the
accessories they are coming out with it. This was the only documentation in
the kit about this stuff. When I bought the kit, the guy at radio shack had
no idea what other items would be coming out, he didn't even know about the
programming module.

So anyways, heres a list of everything you can get for the kit eventually (*
next to ones available now):

MOTION
~ SERVO KIT*
  extra servo motor. has extra set of internal gear too.
~ GEAR KIT*
  bunch of gears, some not included in starter kit
~ WHEEL KIT*
  extra wheels
~ OMNI-DIRECTIONAL WHEEL KIT
  2 omni-directional wheels
~ MOTOR KIT*
  extra motor kit. has extra set of internal gear too.
~ TANK TREAD KIT
  tank tread and hubs
~ SPROCKET AND CHAIN KIT
  4 feet of chain and a bunch of various sprockets

CONTROL
~ CRYSTAL UPGRADE KIT*
  lets you use multiple radios at same time
~ TRANSMITTER ADDON KIT*
  extra tx and rx

LOGIC
~ PROGRAMMING KIT
  connects PC to micro. includes USB cable and programming guide

STRUCTURE
~ HARDWARE METAL KIT*
  extra metal. doubles # of parts and screws in the starter kit

SENSORS
~ ULTRASONIC RANGE FINDER
~ BUMPER SWITCH KIT*
~ OPTICAL SHAFT ENCODER KIT
~ LINE TRACKER KIT
~ LIMIT SWITCH KIT*
~ LIGHT SENSOR KIT

POWER
~ VEX POWER PACK*
  2 rechargable packs (one for bot, one for radio)

EQUIPMENT
~ SAFTEY GLASSES*
~ CUTTING TOOL
  lets you bend and cut the metal parts
~ CARRYING CASE

-Hoss
hossweb.com

   As I think was mentioned in the thread, it's brand new.

   Here's a link to lots of pics from last week's competition and
apparently other sources, shamelessly stolen from the mailing list:

http://www.vexlabs.com/vex-robot-photos.shtml
-----
http://mindspring.com/~benbradley

My set should be ariving tomorow!

I've been playing with it for a couple of weeks now and so far think its
really a nice setup. But until I can get the programming module so I can
program the MCU from my PC, it quite limited. But, it gives me plenty of
time experimenting with making various chassis, sensor arrays, etc so that
when I getthe programming module, I'll have a nice bot built and ready to
program.

-Hoss

Wow, its awesome.  That does kinda suck about the programming.  I'm
going to see what I can do to get around having to use the remote
control.

   Oh, yeah, more stuff on VEX, I submitted a slashdot story Thursday,
it showed up this morning:

http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid /05/01/0258239


-----
http://mindspring.com/~benbradley

The poster that comes with says it comes with ultrasonic range finders
and light sensors.  But then it says that these require the programming
kit.  Think this is something that's going to be comming out later?
I'd think it'd come standard, but they may not have it worked out yet.

I've noticed that for the past year or so robotics-based articles on /.
have generated a lot less buzz than they used to. You prbably post and
read there more than I do, but have you seen the same thing? In the "old
days" a LEGO story might generated 200-300 replies, easy. (Comments in
reply to the recent Hitachi robot article weren't too bad, though...)

-- Gordon

On Mon, 02 May 2005 18:11:07 -0700, Gordon McComb


   I've only been regularly active there about a year (though I've
read it sporadically for several years), and I haven't been there long
enough to notice that. But if true it's certainly dissapointing.
   I did notice the above story only has 74 comments, just above
Sunday's last-place article "Deep Impact Catches First Glimpse of
Target Comet" with 67 comments, whereas the others each have hundreds
of comments.


   I didn't remember this so I had to find it:
http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid /03/16/2314240

   NOW I remember, the "Segway" robot.

-----
http://mindspring.com/~benbradley

If so, it might not necessarily be that there is less interest, but
perhaps instead that robotics and robotic projects are much more
common now vs then and it takes more "wow factor" these days to turn
heads.

-Brian
--
Brian Dean
BDMICRO - ATmega128 Based MAVRIC Controllers
http://www.bdmicro.com/