Questions by Artist on VEX Programing

[miketwalker]

I am personally not aware of a randomization function integrated directly into EasyC. However, a simple "random" system you could make could be a simple if loop where everytime the controller loops it adds 1 to a variable. Depending on the number of random programmed movements you want you can have it reset this variable to 0 everytime it gets to the number of programmed movements. This way, everytime the controller loops (which is always happening when powered up) it is essentially changing the movement that would occur if triggered at that instant. By taking whatever the variable value is at when the optical switch is triggered, it can create your "random" effect.

As for the video activation, I'm not sure what you could do electronically. You could try using a servo that would just be located offboard to press play on a dvd player with the clips and just create the DVD in a way where it'll cycle through the clips. Then just program the servo to swap from position a to position b (a being not touching the button, b being touch the button) and cycle it when you wish to play. It's not the most efficient method by any means, but if you have all of this behind-the-scenes it'll get the job done.

I hope this helps or at least gives you an idea. Feel free to PM me if you run into any issues. We'd love to see photos of the system you've developed, even though we're part of FIRST it's great to see different implementations of systems such as VEX and this sounds like a very interesting idea, and might even give some members of this community some inspiration as well. Good luck with the show!