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Build Instructions

Teacher Toolbox icon Teacher Toolbox - Before You Build

  • Advise students to gather all of the parts needed for the build before starting the building process. Another option to save time would be for the instructor to organize all of the parts needed before the students arrive.

  • Advise students to differentiate between different lengths of Smart Cables and other parts of the build by consulting the scaled parts poster included in the Super Kit. Note that the Smart Cable lengths are not indicated on the cable itself and the parts listed are not scaled 1:1, they are relatively scaled to one another.

Teacher Toolbox icon Teacher Toolbox - Students' Building Roles

  • For suggestions on dividing the build components among the students on a team, click here. (Google / .docx / .pdf)
  • For ideas on how to engage students who complete a build more quickly than others, see this article.

Build the Autopilot

Follow along with the build instructions to build the Autopilot. Once you have built the Standard Drive Base; you will need to follow steps 102 - 117.

Open and follow along with the steps in the build instructions to build the Autopilot IQ.

VEX IQ Autopilot

Teacher Toolbox icon Teacher Toolbox - Time Estimates for the Build

If the build instructions are followed, it should take approximately 60 minutes to build the Autopilot. An additional ten minutes was added to the total build time in order to account for students who may need extra time.

Extend Your Learning icon Extend Your Learning - Reflecting on the Build

Some students may finish the build faster than others. Encourage students who finish early to walk around the classroom and collaborate to help other students who may be struggling.
Another option is to ask those students who finished early to review the Build Instructions and identify steps they found confusing and explain why in their engineering notebooks. Students should also describe how they would change the instructions. This activity will foster critical thinking skills for students who found the build easy, while giving you time to continue helping students who are still working on the build.

Extend Your Learning icon Extend Your Learning - Angle Reference

There are many helpful tools that you can create using the pieces in the VEX Super Kit. Since the students will be using degrees when coding their robot to turn, they can create an angle reference (Google / .docx / .pdf) that can be used when coding the Autopilot to turn.

Teacher Toolbox icon Teacher Toolbox - Checklist

Once all students have completed the build, go through this checklist to make sure students are ready to move on.

  • Check that the Autopilot is built correctly.

  • Check that the battery is charged and connected to the VEX IQ Robot Brain.

  • Check that all Smart Cables are plugged in firmly for a good connection.

  • Check that students have put away any extra parts and have cleaned up their area.

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