Simple Programming
Get moving!
This is where you can program Wheelson to do different things!
Later on, when you plug your Wheelson into your computer, you will learn how to program Wheelson to do much more complicated stuff - for now though, if you just want him to move around, this is where you will find all of that!
Let us teach you how to use this feature...
Select Simple Programming in the menu
Navigate through the menu by using the directional buttons and select Simple Programming by clicking on the middle button!
File Screen - Create, play, delete or save!
The first thing you will see is a list of all your previous programs (or one program called 'Program 1' if this is your first time!). This screen is like your file manager, here you can:
Play an existing program - By holding down the SELECT (middle) button until the green bar gets to the end. This will then play the select program!
Open an existing program - By pressing SELECT (instead of holding down) we can open an existing program and edit it. This will bring you to the programming screen which we will cover in the next section.
Delete a program - By holding down the BACK button until the red bar reaches the end, you will be deleting the selected program!
Create a new program - By clicking on the green plus you can create a new program. This will also open you up to the next screen:
And of course, you can always go back to the main menu by clicking back once!
Programming screen
Whether you opened an existing program or you created a new program, you should have the below programming screen! This is where we can add different blocks, in sequence, to create cool programs that tell Wheelson what to do!
Moving around - Using the directional buttons, you will be able to move your red cursor between blocks.
Creating a new block - Use the directional buttons to navigate all the way to the white block with a plus on it. This is the "add a new block" button and will always be at the end of your program, it doesn't do anything but opens up a new menu that will allow you to add different blocks!
Once your red cursor is on the + button, press the SELECT button. This will open up a pop-up menu with 7 different blocks for us to program with:
- Orange up block - This will tell Wheelson to go forward - we can edit the speed and how long it will go forward for in the next section!
- Green down block - This will tell Wheelson to go backwards.
- Red left block - This will tell Wheelson to go left.
- Blue right block - This will tell Wheelson to go right.
- Blue light bulb block - This will tell Wheelson to turn ON his headlights.
- Purple light bulb block - This will tell Wheelson to turn OFF his headlights.
- Black Pause button - This will tell Wheelson to pause/stop for a certain amount of time - we can edit how long for in the next section!
Let's say we want to add a "Black Pause Block", to do this we would use the navigational buttons from before, move our red cursor all the way down and click the SELECT button. You'll notice that the pop-up menu will drop down and the Pause Block is now in our program! If we want to add another block, repeat the same process by navigating to the white + block, clicking SELECT, choosing your block and clicking SELECT again! Its as easy as that!
Editing an existing block - To edit an existing block, simply navigate your cursor over to the block and click the SELECT button. This will open up a block specific options page:
Note the LED on and LED off blocks don't have a pop-up edit page as there isn't much to edit! If you wanted to turn on the headlights for a certain amount of time and then turn them off, you would simply use a LED on block combined with a pause block and then add a LED off block to turn the LEDs off!
The Orange up block, Green Down Block, Red Left Block and Blue Right Block all have the same options page. Here you can edit:
- How fast Wheelson will move (either forwards, backwards, left or right). This is presented as a percentage of the maximum speed! So 100% is the max speed so a smaller percentage will mean Wheelson will move slower!
- How long Wheelson will move for! You can edit the time, in seconds, Wheelson will move at the above speed for.
To edit these two options we use the up and down buttons to move between them and the left and right buttons to edit the values. Once we are happy with the values, regardless of which option we are on, click select and it will save and exit the blocks option page!
The only other block you can edit is the PAUSE block. In the same way as before, click SELECT to edit the blocks options and then use the left and right buttons to change the time in seconds (how long Wheelson will pause for).
Deleting a block - Not happy with something? Hold down the BACK button until the block disappears.
Playing the program - If you want to play your new program, simply click the back button to go back to the File screen and then hold down SELECT till the green bar reaches the end to play your program!
Pretty cool right? This is also a great way to learn more about procedural programming! Ready to move on though? Next up is the Line Tracking menu!