Unboxing the VEX CTE Workcell Kit
Watch this video to learn about your VEX CTE Workcell Kit. Dive into the boxes in your Kit, hear advice for finding components in the boxes, as well as helpful hints for you and your students as you get started with the CTE Workcell.
(upbeat music)
Welcome to the VEX Classroom. My name is Alaina, and in this video, we are going to be walking through the CTE Workcell Kit. So we're going to unbox this together, talk about what is in each of the boxes inside of your kit, as well as some tips and tricks as you get started working with the CTE Workcell. So let's go ahead and get started.
Each CTE Workcell Kit comes in one large box that should be shipped to you, and there are quite a few elements inside. So we're gonna go ahead and break these down together. Inside your kit, all of these things are nested really nicely. You will see a piece of paper here that has information about different electronic pieces, I'm gonna put that to the side. Each of these boxes has a name down here in the corner. So I can see it says "CTE Workcell System Bundle." We just want to be able to identify each of these kits, I'll explain more about that later.
So we have our system bundle box, we have, let's take out this big one here. This is components box 1. We have here our 6-Axis Robotic Arm kit. And then our last two boxes, we have Component Box 2, and, you guessed it, Component Box 3. And now we can get started talking about each of these boxes.
I'm gonna go ahead and move our component boxes off to the side so we can get started with our 6-Axis Robotic Arm kit. So with this, with each of these boxes, there are quite a few elements inside. So here, I can see information about how to get started with my 6-Axis Arm. And you'll notice some different things here about how to power or connect the arm. I'm gonna go ahead and set this aside 'cause we're talking through it right now.
Inside of these kits, you'll find pieces in different areas. So if I actually lift out this plastic insert, you'll notice that a few pieces came with me. So these discs and both of these end effectors here, that would go on the end of our 6-Axis Arm. For pieces like this, if you just flip it over, there's a piece of tape on the back just holding it into place. So when you need it, you can just remove that tape, pull it out, and use it with your kit, whatever build you may be doing as we see here.
Every single box and all these different elements in the kit are itemized for you in one of our VEX Library articles. So here in our overview of the CTE Workcell Kit article, I can see each of the boxes listed on the side. So if we look at our robotic arm kit box, I can see what we just looked at, as well as what elements are inside of that box. This will help you understand where to find certain items as you start building, as well as different tips and tricks, just like what we talked about here with removing that plastic insert in order to access things like the magnet pickup tool or the discs.
Other boxes like some of our component boxes, I'm gonna come over to this one here, Component Box 2, we look here, inside of here, things are layered as well. So I have different pieces in the kit that are layered. Here, I can see my air tank. But if I lift that up, this whole cardboard piece comes out, and I can see all of my smart cables underneath. So if you can't find something, but the article says that it's inside of that box, make sure you're checking underneath on other components so you can see what is there as part of it.
So just to give an overview of what you can find in each of these boxes, this box here, which is Component Box 2, holds most things that are related to the pneumatic system. You do have other pieces in here like the smart cables, the pallets are underneath the tubing, as well as our signal tower. But in general, this box is really focused on the pneumatics. Obviously, our 6-Axis Robotic Arm kit we saw includes things for our arm, including powering the arm and some of the ancillary materials there. We're just gonna leave that open to the side 'cause we'll need that in here in a moment.
Thank you for joining us in this unboxing journey. We hope this video helps you get started with your CTE Workcell Kit. If you have any questions, feel free to reach out to us.
Happy building!
Our system bundle includes all of the main electronic pieces necessary for the later builds, such as when you're powering the 6-Axis Arm with the EXP brain. To open the bundle, let me grab some scissors as it is taped for shipping. Inside, you will find the EXP brain, battery, motors, and sensors.
Beyond that, in our other two component boxes, Component Box 3 includes most, if not all, of the pieces for our conveyor system. You'll find various components for our conveyors, diverters, an open-ended wrench, and cubes for some of the other activities you'll be doing. Finally, in Component Box 1, we have a lot of the main construction pieces. This includes our tile frame, which will go around our CTE tiles, and the actual hardware itself. We have a great hardware case that can be set aside. It's a nice big dual case to keep track of all these small components. Underneath, you'll find your dry erase surface, CTE tiles, and a screwdriver, which is essential for building.
Understanding what is in each of these boxes is really helpful when we get to the build instructions. If I open up my build instructions for the very first build of the CTE 6-Axis Arm, we see what the final build looks like in our 3D build instructions. On the following page, there's a parts list that itemizes everything needed to build this. It tells me what box each item is in, so I can go directly to that box. For instance, one of the first places I need to go is my robotic arm kit box. I know I need my 6-Axis Robotic Arm, so I'll pull it out and put it to the side. I also need all of these cables.
It's important to note that with the 6-Axis Arm, you need a specific power supply. You cannot power the arm by simply plugging the USB cable into the back of the arm and connecting it to your computer. In this kit, we have our cable to connect the arm to our computer and a power supply piece. This allows us to connect these pieces together. Every set of students using a 6-Axis Robotic Arm will need a power supply to plug the adapter directly in to power their arm. The power supply has quite a bit of length, so I'll leave them tied up since we're in a small space. Once you have a power supply, you can use your USB cable to connect your 6-Axis Arm to the computer.
For this first build, you also need our magnet pickup tool, which is located right above our disc. I'll undo the tape to get that out and set it aside because we don't need anything else from this box right now. I'll put this away, but I want to show you one piece about the magnet pickup tool. With our magnet pickup tool, you can see where it connects to the 6-Axis Robotic Arm and the cable. On the side, there's a white line and a magnet arrow, indicating where the magnetic piece is to pick up and drop cubes, discs, and similar items.
Thank you for your attention, and I hope this information helps you set up your classroom efficiently. If you have any questions, feel free to reach out. Happy building!
So on our 6-Axis Robotic Arm, if I go all the way to this last joint, I want to line up this white line with where it says J6. That tells me that it's the front, which then also means that this cable here is going the shortest distance to where we plug this in at the side. This is really important because as your students are coding the 6-Axis Arm, as this rotates, it is possible for that cable to get too twisted and it could cause damage. So you just want to make sure that as long as you're starting with this in the correct position of this white line here, then your magnet should be in a good position where it's not going to twist or cause any tension on this wire. So those are other really important tips as part of that.
Another thing to note as one of our tips and tricks is that I was moving this manually by hand. The 6-Axis Robotic Arm is designed to be able to be moved by hand, so that way, you can go ahead and move it to whatever position, determine the order of behaviors that you want from your 6-Axis Arm, and do all of that as part of that planning process for your coding projects.
If we go back to our build instructions, now we have some of our first pieces, and then we can start looking for those other pieces in your kit from Component Box 1, 1, 1, and then two things from Component Box 2. So it makes it nice and simple to know exactly which of these boxes that you need as you're getting started building things with your 6-Axis Robotic Arm. I can go ahead and just move these things around. I know that I don't need Component Box 3 for quite a while, so I can set that aside as I go through.
I hope this helps as you get started with your CTE Workcell Kit, and that you are excited to get started building and coding your 6-Axis Robotic Arm. We'll see you next time.
(upbeat music)
Welcome to the VEX Classroom. My name is Alaina, and in this video, we are going to be walking through the CTE Workcell Kit. So we're going to unbox this together, talk about what is in each of the boxes inside of your kit, as well as some tips and tricks as you get started working with the CTE Workcell. So let's go ahead and get started.
Each CTE Workcell Kit comes in one large box that should be shipped to you, and there are quite a few elements inside. So we're gonna go ahead and break these down together. Inside your kit, all of these things are nested really nicely. You will see a piece of paper here that has information about different electronic pieces, I'm gonna put that to the side. Each of these boxes has a name down here in the corner. So I can see it says "CTE Workcell System Bundle." We just want to be able to identify each of these kits, I'll explain more about that later.
So we have our system bundle box, we have, let's take out this big one here. This is components box 1. We have here our 6-Axis Robotic Arm kit. And then our last two boxes, we have Component Box 2, and, you guessed it, Component Box 3. And now we can get started talking about each of these boxes.
I'm gonna go ahead and move our component boxes off to the side so we can get started with our 6-Axis Robotic Arm kit. So with this, with each of these boxes, there are quite a few elements inside. So here, I can see information about how to get started with my 6-Axis Arm. And you'll notice some different things here about how to power or connect the arm. I'm gonna go ahead and set this aside 'cause we're talking through it right now.
Inside of these kits, you'll find pieces in different areas. So if I actually lift out this plastic insert, you'll notice that a few pieces came with me. So these discs and both of these end effectors here, that would go on the end of our 6-Axis Arm. For pieces like this, if you just flip it over, there's a piece of tape on the back just holding it into place. So when you need it, you can just remove that tape, pull it out, and use it with your kit, whatever build you may be doing as we see here.
Every single box and all these different elements in the kit are itemized for you in one of our VEX Library articles. So here in our overview of the CTE Workcell Kit article, I can see each of the boxes listed on the side. So if we look at our robotic arm kit box, I can see what we just looked at, as well as what elements are inside of that box. This will help you understand where to find certain items as you start building, as well as different tips and tricks, just like what we talked about here with removing that plastic insert in order to access things like the magnet pickup tool or the discs.
Other boxes like some of our component boxes, I'm gonna come over to this one here, Component Box 2, we look here, inside of here, things are layered as well. So I have different pieces in the kit that are layered. Here, I can see my air tank. But if I lift that up, this whole cardboard piece comes out, and I can see all of my smart cables underneath. So if you can't find something, but the article says that it's inside of that box, make sure you're checking underneath on other components so you can see what is there as part of it.
So just to give an overview of what you can find in each of these boxes, this box here, which is Component Box 2, holds most things that are related to the pneumatic system. You do have other pieces in here like the smart cables, the pallets are underneath the tubing, as well as our signal tower. But in general, this box is really focused on the pneumatics. Obviously, our 6-Axis Robotic Arm kit we saw includes things for our arm, including powering the arm and some of the ancillary materials there. We're just gonna leave that open to the side 'cause we'll need that in here in a moment.
Thank you for joining us in this unboxing journey. We hope this video helps you get started with your CTE Workcell Kit. If you have any questions, feel free to reach out to us.
Happy building!
Our system bundle includes all of the main electronic pieces necessary for the later builds, such as when you're powering the 6-Axis Arm with the EXP brain. To open the bundle, let me grab some scissors as it is taped for shipping. Inside, you will find the EXP brain, battery, motors, and sensors.
Beyond that, in our other two component boxes, Component Box 3 includes most, if not all, of the pieces for our conveyor system. You'll find various components for our conveyors, diverters, an open-ended wrench, and cubes for some of the other activities you'll be doing. Finally, in Component Box 1, we have a lot of the main construction pieces. This includes our tile frame, which will go around our CTE tiles, and the actual hardware itself. We have a great hardware case that can be set aside. It's a nice big dual case to keep track of all these small components. Underneath, you'll find your dry erase surface, CTE tiles, and a screwdriver, which is essential for building.
Understanding what is in each of these boxes is really helpful when we get to the build instructions. If I open up my build instructions for the very first build of the CTE 6-Axis Arm, we see what the final build looks like in our 3D build instructions. On the following page, there's a parts list that itemizes everything needed to build this. It tells me what box each item is in, so I can go directly to that box. For instance, one of the first places I need to go is my robotic arm kit box. I know I need my 6-Axis Robotic Arm, so I'll pull it out and put it to the side. I also need all of these cables.
It's important to note that with the 6-Axis Arm, you need a specific power supply. You cannot power the arm by simply plugging the USB cable into the back of the arm and connecting it to your computer. In this kit, we have our cable to connect the arm to our computer and a power supply piece. This allows us to connect these pieces together. Every set of students using a 6-Axis Robotic Arm will need a power supply to plug the adapter directly in to power their arm. The power supply has quite a bit of length, so I'll leave them tied up since we're in a small space. Once you have a power supply, you can use your USB cable to connect your 6-Axis Arm to the computer.
For this first build, you also need our magnet pickup tool, which is located right above our disc. I'll undo the tape to get that out and set it aside because we don't need anything else from this box right now. I'll put this away, but I want to show you one piece about the magnet pickup tool. With our magnet pickup tool, you can see where it connects to the 6-Axis Robotic Arm and the cable. On the side, there's a white line and a magnet arrow, indicating where the magnetic piece is to pick up and drop cubes, discs, and similar items.
Thank you for your attention, and I hope this information helps you set up your classroom efficiently. If you have any questions, feel free to reach out. Happy building!
So on our 6-Axis Robotic Arm, if I go all the way to this last joint, I want to line up this white line with where it says J6. That tells me that it's the front, which then also means that this cable here is going the shortest distance to where we plug this in at the side. This is really important because as your students are coding the 6-Axis Arm, as this rotates, it is possible for that cable to get too twisted and it could cause damage. So you just want to make sure that as long as you're starting with this in the correct position of this white line here, then your magnet should be in a good position where it's not going to twist or cause any tension on this wire. So those are other really important tips as part of that.
Another thing to note as one of our tips and tricks is that I was moving this manually by hand. The 6-Axis Robotic Arm is designed to be able to be moved by hand, so that way, you can go ahead and move it to whatever position, determine the order of behaviors that you want from your 6-Axis Arm, and do all of that as part of that planning process for your coding projects.
If we go back to our build instructions, now we have some of our first pieces, and then we can start looking for those other pieces in your kit from Component Box 1, 1, 1, and then two things from Component Box 2. So it makes it nice and simple to know exactly which of these boxes that you need as you're getting started building things with your 6-Axis Robotic Arm. I can go ahead and just move these things around. I know that I don't need Component Box 3 for quite a while, so I can set that aside as I go through.
I hope this helps as you get started with your CTE Workcell Kit, and that you are excited to get started building and coding your 6-Axis Robotic Arm. We'll see you next time.
(upbeat music)
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