 You asked and I'm delivering. More robotics videos. Today we've got the VEX IQ Super Kit from VEX Robotics. VEX IQ was introduced about two years ago and it's chiefly targeted at elementary to middle school students. For those of you who don't know what this is all about, robotics kits like the ones from Tetrix, MakeBlock, Mindstorms, and VEX are basically educational toys, sort of? I mean, they're not exactly toys, but I don't know what else to call them. You won't really be able to build a practical, useful robot that will dress you in the morning or vacuum your floor or cook you dinner. That's not really the point. The purpose of these robotics kits, as far as I can tell, is the enormous amount of educational value that they provide, while still being a ton of fun. When you build with this stuff, you're learning a huge amount about mechanical engineering and programming, and there is so much to learn. So let's dig in and see what the VEX IQ system has to offer, and hit that like button if you want to see more robotics videos in the future. The Logitech G303 features a lightweight design, an advanced optical sensor with DeltaZero technology for precise tracking, and RGB lighting to match your setup. Click now to learn more. So, if you want to get started with the VEX IQ Robot, you've basically got three choices. There's the starter kit with a radio remote control and two touch sensors. There's the starter kit with no remote control, but it has seven sensors. Then there's the super kit, which has the remote control and the seven sensors, but is $50 more, which I think is well worth it. That's the kit I'll be reviewing today. It comes with 850 parts, which you can use to build and program pretty much any kind of robot you can imagine, and there are instructions for several models to get you started. The learning ceiling is surprisingly high, while still being easy enough for beginners to get started with, but we'll talk more about that later. So, opening up the box, we see, hey, what's this? It comes with its own storage bin and a compartmentalized tray. 50 points to Gryffindor, that's great. There's plenty of extra room to allow your collection of VEX parts to grow. You can even fit a second tray above the first one. Looks like you won't be needing to take any trips down to the container store, which is actually a cooler place than it sounds. Anyway, the VEX IQ kit comes with a getting started guide, two instructional booklets, and a poster with all of the pieces at one-to-one scale for reference purposes. Next, we get to the included sensors. Oh yes, these are awesome. There are seven in total, and they're all small and easy to mount anywhere onto your robot. We've got two bumper switches, these will let your robot know when it's run into something. There's an ultrasonic distance sensor, these use echolocation to measure distances to objects, that's always fun. And there's a light and color sensor, useful for line following, detecting colors, and measuring ambient brightness. And then, my favorite, the gyro sensor, which measures turn rates and angles, very useful for orientation. There are also two touch LEDs, which I don't really think of as sensors. They can't really be used as extra bumper switches, they're more like extra buttons. Each one also has fully programmable RGB LEDs, which I've always found to be very useful for debugging and knowing where you are in a program. Then we get to the smart motors, and guess what? There are four of them, and they're all pretty powerful too. Not only that, but they're easy to mount, not too bulky or oddly shaped, and they all have encoders and microprocessors inside to measure all sorts of cool stuff. You can even stall them without having to worry about damage. Next up we've got the radio controller, which is great, but it could be better. It feels kind of cheap, and the buttons are a bit soggy, especially the shoulder buttons, which rotate as they press inward, rather than going in straight. Also, my left joystick has a bit of a problem, it doesn't go all the way to the left. I've been told that this is a known issue which has been fixed in the most recent batch. I recalibrated mine for full functionality, but Vex says they're glad to do RMAs if customers aren't happy. Despite this, the controller is functionally excellent, and it definitely is still worth getting. The two joysticks give you proportional control in every direction, and on top of that you've got eight buttons. And it's all fully programmable and customizable in software. It also comes with a 50-hour rechargeable battery, and did I mention it's radio-controlled? That's a big deal. Unlike infrared, with radio you don't need line of sight to your robot, so you won't get easily disconnected. Compare this to the Mindstorm's EV3 infrared beacon with five buttons but no joysticks, and the Tetrix gamepad with two joysticks but no buttons. And now we get to the centerpiece of the Vex IQ system, the fully programmable robot brain. This is where you connect all of your sensors and motors using the included RJ12 cables. This thing has 12 serial ports that can be used as input or output, so yeah, if you wanted to you could hook up 12 motors. The brain also comes with its own rechargeable battery, so there's no need to periodically sacrifice several AA's at a time to the robot gods. There's also a spot for the radio module that easily links to the controller, and it even has a backlit screen. At this point I think they're just showing off. As for the rest of the parts, there's a wide variety of beams, pins, wheels, gears, axles, corner connectors, rubber bands, and even double and quadruple wide beams. And metal axles, which are overkill in most cases. All the parts are strong and good quality, but the axles can be pretty annoying because they grip either too much or not enough. You can use rubber shaft collars for extra grip, but that can waste a lot of space. The LEGO Group solved this problem with expansion caps on all axle holes, a feature that VEX IQ does not currently have. To recap, the Super Kit comes with 4 motors, 7 sensors, 12 in-out ports on the fully programmable brain, a radio controller, a rechargeable battery, and 850 pieces. This is all really impressive when you compare the VEX IQ system to its primary competition, LEGO Mindstorms, of which the newest iteration is EV3. The EV3 kit comes with 3 motors, 3 sensors, and the brain brick has 4 in-out ports for sensors and 4 out-put ports for motors. But they can't be swapped, so you couldn't hook up 8 motors if you wanted to. And it requires AA and AAA batteries, which are not included. While the LEGO Mindstorms EV3 has 550 pieces and costs $350, the VEX IQ Super Kit has 850 pieces and only costs $300. Wow, that is some good value. So that's the hardware, let's get on to the software. There are two programming options for VEX IQ, ModKit and Robot C. There are also several third-party alternatives, but those are not officially supported. The desktop version of ModKit is $50, but the online version is fully featured and free, so let's check that out first. ModKit is a purely graphical programming interface, based on Scratch from MIT. You do have to install something called ModKit Link on your computer first, but at least that's pretty easy. You program in ModKit by connecting these various code blocks together. It's pretty straightforward, and if you're new to all this, there are a few Getting Started tutorials to help you along. But that's all that there is, just getting started. Once you've gotten started, the tutorials run out. There are no more. Where are the intermediate and advanced tutorials? I looked all over the place, but couldn't find any. Now, I can see that despite its simplicity, ModKit does have a lot more to offer than the tutorials tell you about. But without any further guidance, I ended up learning ModKit through rigorous trial and error. This always works, but it's slow and frustrating, and you're more likely to end up with gaps in your knowledge. I did program a pretty cool pinball game, though. Check out that video on Channel SuperFun right over here. I also encountered a couple of bugs and missing features, the worst of which is the lack of copy-paste. But it was nothing game-breaking, unlike my experience with MakeBlock video here. Let's move on to the more advanced programming option, Robot C, which has a 10-day free trial, and after that costs $79 for a single seat. One important note, the VEX firmware updater tool that works well for ModKit is very unreliable for Robot C. Here, it looks like my firmware is updated, doesn't it? But it's not. I had to close the dedicated firmware updater tool and download firmware through Robot C instead. And keep that updater tool closed because it interferes with your serial port. Seriously, what is it with serial ports and connection problems? It's frustrating. Anyway, first up we've got the Robot C graphical mode. There are some great tutorials for this, which seem to be pretty comprehensive. It's kind of similar to ModKit, but it actually has less functionality. There are no functions and no variables. And like ModKit, there isn't a working copy-paste, or undo. But you can turn your graphical code straight into text-based code with the click of a button, which certainly helps to smooth out the programming learning curve. So, let's move on to Robot C's text-based mode. It's worth noting at this point that VEX IQ comes with a free online curriculum for students and teachers. It explains all sorts of robot stuff in detail, but once you get to the actual programming, it just says, Become familiar with the programming software, and doesn't bother to tell you how. Now, there are tutorials linked from the software page, which I've been following, but there's nothing for text-based Robot C for VEX IQ. So how is someone supposed to learn how to use Robot C? Well, I made some phone calls and I got an interview with local VEX IQ team leader, Sharissa. She tells me her students teach themselves. There isn't even curriculum in D.C. for learning C. That's where I have a problem, because I'm not a programming teacher. When it comes to C, it's my club that really gets involved in this, and they take it kind of on their own time to learn the language, and I really don't have a lot of a part of that. Well then, it looks like I'll have to piece everything together using the online documentation, the included example programs, and the forums and wiki. That's okay, but without a dedicated tutorial to give you a solid foundation of knowledge in Robot C, your progress will be slower, and you're more likely to end up with gaps in your knowledge. At least that's been my experience. One suggestion I've heard is that you can just learn C itself. There are plenty of tutorials and books to help you with that, and then Robot C will be easy. However you do it, once you learn Robot C, you will have full control over your robot creations, even though Robot C is apparently not as full featured as C itself. I was able to program some cool stuff, like a PID line follower, a self-parking robot, and a robot that only hoards red cues. Robot C works pretty well, but it's got some problems too. The windows can get messed up, especially when you enter debugging mode, and the windows freak out for a couple of seconds, and you can't do anything. I also encountered a bug where Robot C crashed when the debugger was launched, something I had to fix by deleting registry files and reinstalling. Also, I really wish that Robot C had something like the function screen tips in Microsoft Excel. That kind of guidance is really useful when you're still learning to code. However, it looks to me like not many students will even learn to program in Robot C for their VEX IQ robots. Instead, they'll learn it when they move on to the bigger, badder VEX EDR robots, which are aimed at older students in middle to high school. At this point, I've really come to understand that VEX IQ is not really intended for individuals like myself. It's been designed for teams and classrooms, and it's a lot easier to learn all this stuff if you have other people around you to help you. In fact, there are yearly VEX competitions with hundreds of participating teams, something which provides an excellent environment that encourages students to learn programming, engineering, collaboration, teamwork, and so on. You know, it's basically a sport, like basketball, but for your brain. Brain-skidball. Anyway, considering that VEX IQ is so classroom-oriented, Sharissa's perspective as an educator is particularly important for this review, so I'll let her provide some concluding remarks. The school board has a restriction as to what software you can install on your computers. To have a robot programming platform that is free and web-based is a call from the heavens. So then you would recommend the VEX IQ system for teaching kids robotics. Oh, totally, yeah. And I'm kind of like an advocate for this stuff. I've used very eager students. They had a hard time grasping programming, and I feel like VEX IQ kind of fills in that gap for between $250 and $299 Canadian. You can purchase a box that has all the pieces in it and everything necessary to build one robot with step-by-step instructions. Affordability, I think, is totally there. So there you have it. I recommend it. Sharissa recommends it. What more do you want? That all being said, I do have quite the laundry list of suggestions for improvements to the system, ranging from nice to have to why don't you have this? VEX Robotics has already proven that they listen to user feedback, so don't be surprised if you see some of these implemented in the future. As for the price, I feel like $79 is a lot to ask for Robot C, but compared to the alternatives, it's actually still competitive. The VEX IQ hardware, though, is a steal at its current price of $300 for the Super Kit, considering how much is included. If you buy one of these, just make sure that it gets used and appreciated. This is not the kind of thing to be assembled and played with once and then left to collect dust on a shelf. Properly utilized, this kit can and does provide years of fun and education, and that is valuable. And if you don't like robots, maybe you'll like today's video sponsor, Ting, because when you call Ting, you get to talk to a real person and not a machine. Sorry, buddy. Ting is a mobile carrier that's focused on customer service and satisfaction first, and best of all, in my opinion, you only pay for what you use, which is really how all mobile carriers should work. I mean, why should anyone have to predict how much they're going to use their phone and then be punished for predicting wrong? That's stupid. Well, no more. The average Ting bill is only $23 a month per device, but don't take my word for it. Head over to linus.ting.com and try out their savings calculator to see for yourself. Also, if you're stuck in a contract and switch to Ting, they'll cover 25% of your cancellation fee, up to $75, and when you sign up at our link, you'll also get $25 in service credit or $25 towards a new device. So go ahead and check it out. Thanks for watching, guys, and let me know your thoughts on the VEX IQ system in the comments below. And tell me, were you ever on a robotics team or have I inspired you to join one? Also, how do you feel about the inevitable automation of your job and the upcoming robot apocalypse? Let us know with a like or dislike. I dislike the robot apocalypse. Also, you can get subscribed and even support us directly by using our affiliate code to shop at Amazon, buying a cool t-shirt like one of these, or with a direct monthly contribution through the community forum. And if you're looking for something else to watch, I suggest you check out the aforementioned Bug Eating Pinball Challenge. See you next time.