Programming Motors Basics
Last updated
Last updated
Let's start by getting a motor spinning automatically when we hit play on our program!
From the DcMotor menu in Blocks select the block .
Not seeing your motor listed? Be sure the correct configuration has been activated!
The block above will change names depending on the name of the motor in a configuration file. If there are multiple motors in a configuration file the arrow next to test_motor will drop down a menu of all the motors in a configuration.
Add this block to the OpMode within the while loop. In this scenario we want our motor to continually run so long as our OpMode is active:
Select Save OpMode in the upper lefthand corner of the programming interface.
Try running this OpMode on the test bed and consider the following questions:
How fast is the motor running?
What happens if you change the power from 1 to 5? What about 100?
What happens if you change the power from 1 to 0.3?
This is a good time to experiment with different values to see how our motor reacts. You might notice that setting our power to 5 or even 100 does not make the motor spin any fast than when set to 1. But setting our power to 0.3 significantly slows our motor's speed, right?
Now what happens if you change the power from 1 to -1?
From our perspective, a power level of 1 probably doesn't sound very strong. However, to our robot the power being set to 1 translates to the motor running at 100%. That would mean setting the power to 0.3 requests the motor to spin at 30% of power.
When we set our power to a negative power, the motor is told to reverse direction while maintaining that power. So if we set our power to -1 then our motor will still run at 100%, but in the opposite direction than when set to 1.
The direction a motor spins may be determined by the power OR may be designated during the initialization process.
