Horane Daley

Professor McDonald

Writing For Engineer

9 February 2020

Technical Description: Vex Clawbot

The Clawbot used by VEX compartments is a small robot with a claw at the front of the robot. The robot’s gimmick is to mimic picking something up and dropping. The claw at the front opens and closes its claws to pick up certain objects. In doing this they can carry said object as far as is determined by the person controlling the robot and can be dropped at any time. Vex robotics require a lot of materials in order to successfully perform they have 1. The brain of the robot 2. The controller and 3. The smart motor. Over the years Vex has updated its products for the new generation of claw bots that have better performance and functionality. This means more options for the user and better performance of their key compartments that I just listed above.

The Brain

Perhaps the most important asset of Vex robots, not just the claw bot. The brain is where all the information’s of how the robot performs flow. The brain runs the motors and connects to the controller in order for the robot to move. The way the brain connects to the robot is by the 20 inputs on the brain itself. The brain is touchscreen and gives you the option to do many creative things through it. The ability to run practices matches is one thing that will catch the eye of a student using VEX. With the brain, It teaches you to see actions for sensors on the robots.

Sensors can be attached to any robot and run directly from the brain. There are multiple different sensors with different uses. They can help you to be more creative when building your program for the claw bot to make the claw bot more efficient without human interaction. An example of this is the line sensor which senses a straight line and stays on that straight line without any help from the controller.

The Controller

The controller gets all of its information from the brain. With the new advancements in VEX V5 technology, it is now a touch screen allowing users to stop and run programs effectively. The controller is what you would use to control where the robot goes unless you have an automatic system already programmed in the brain.

These automatic systems would come from the coding system used by Vex to create different programs that are downloaded to the robot for it to carry out. If you want to be in charge of your robot’s destiny more intimately you would then use the controller where you control the wheels, the claw and the outputs and inputs you put in the robot’s very own smart motor.

The Smart Motor

This small motor packs enough power to be used for the V5 robots either it be a claw bot or a customized Robot for competition. The V5 smart motor has packed inside of its high-level gears, thermal management, and circuit board. All of this, when attached to the robot, helps it to run smoothly through any terrain you may test the Vex robot on.

The brain attaches specific programs into each motor which determines how it runs. How powerfull it runs and the directions it goes. The brain and programming with the controller all come together to determine how the smart motor operates on each claw bot.