ROBOTC for VEX Robotics 4.53 preview is out and it sports a myriad of awesome new features that we’re very excited about! A full list of changes and improvements appear below, but here are the highlights:

Create Graphs from your Datalogs

Want to know what running your robot into a wall looks like to your accelerometer? Curious about how ambient light intensity varies throughout the day? Datalogging now supports (live) plotting of incoming data gathered on the robot brain. Science experiments involving sensor and motor data can be displayed. You can easily find out by gathering the data and having ROBOTC plot the data for you, as it comes in.

Datalogging is no longer restricted to just Full ROBOTC, we’ve added easy to use blocks that allow you to access the same functionality in a simple manner.

Additionally, logged data can even be exported for further analysis in a spreadsheet application of your choice.

ROBOTC Graphical Variable Support

You can now use variables in ROBOTC Graphical, as well as perform various operations on them. You can add, subtract, divide, multiple, whatever your program requires. You can use variables in loops, motor blocks, you name it!

ROBOTC Graphical Break and Continue

We’ve added two new program flow blocks, break and continue. This was a much requested feature from our more advanced users of ROBOTC Graphical. You can now create more complex programs without creating work-arounds or having to switch to ROBOTC Full.

Beta Channel Access

Want to have a front row seat when it comes to upcoming features in ROBOTC? Subscribe to the beta channel through ROBOTC’s preference menu and you will be notified when a preview build (such as this one), is released. Try out new and exciting features before we release them to the general public and provide us with feedback. Help make ROBOTC better!

Other changes and bug fixes

New features – VEX

You can control an LED on the VEX EDR from Graphical and Natural Language using the new setLED block or command.

Changes and Improvements – General

The default colors in the Assembly window (F9) have new defaults for increased readability.

Function tooltips have been revised and corrected where applicable.

License error messages have been improved. A short explanation of the error codes is now provided.

#info has been added to the list of support #pragma statements, such as #error and #warn

The start and stop buttons on the datalogging control have been merged into a single button.

Deleting a file from the File Utility was not possible, this has been fixed.

We’ve made some visual changes to ROBOTC Graphical including new colours for enhanced readability.

Internal improvements to the datalogging system have been made that resolve possible data corruption and inability to disable polling for a specific data series.

Saving a New User Model in the Motors and Sensor Setup has been fixed.

Various float conversion related issues have been fixed.

NaN (Not a Number) detection has been fixed.

Sscanf with more than 7 arguments could crash the VM, this has been fixed.

Overloaded deprecated function no longer cause warnings.

A discrepancy between the compiler and VM regarding the maximum number of tasks has been fixed.

An issue with ROBOTC crashing due to a recursive macro has been addressed.

The RVW package manager now shows the correct informational icon.

Opening the RVW package manager no longer causes an exception under certain circumstances.

An issue with the debugStream window background refresh causing a hang when communications with the robot was lost, has been remedied.

The Program Debug window no longer crops the status line.

You can now use displayInverseString() in combination with a char *.

drawInvertRect and drawInvertEllipse were not deprecated correctly, this has been fixed.

Changes and Improvements – VEX

The VexIQ LCD screen has been added to the #debuggerWindows #pragma.

A bug in the macro parser prevented the use of the VEX EDR platform when a PLTW license was active. This has been fixed.

An issue with debugging and using sscanf on the VEX IQ has been addressed.

VEX IQ getGyroRate and getGyroRateFloat return incorrect values, this has been fixed.

Starting a new task on the VEX EDR no longer clears the screen.

Using drawTextCenteredInUserScreenArea function will no longer throw an exception on the VEX IQ.

An issue with the start of flash file system not showing correctly in communication debug message has been fixed.

The VEX EDR competition template now sets the platform correctly.

And let us know what you think of the new updates. Happy Programming!