Sensors & Actors

The Sensors & Actors section lets you view live sensor readings and interact with motors and servos directly from the touchscreen — no code required.

Navigating to Sensors & Actors

From the dashboard, tap the green Sensors & Actors tile.

You will see a list of sensor categories. Tap a category to see the individual sensors inside it.

[PICTURE: Sensor category selection screen with list of categories]

Sensor Categories

IMU (Inertial Measurement Unit)

Shows the robot’s:

  • Heading — current compass direction (0–360°)
  • Gyroscope — rotation rates on all three axes
  • Accelerometer — acceleration on all three axes
  • Orientation quaternion — raw orientation data for advanced use
  • Temperature — IMU chip temperature

Values update in real time.

[PICTURE: IMU readings screen showing gyro, accel, and heading values]

Analog Sensors

Shows a live reading for each configured analog port (0–5). The value is a number from 0 to 4095. Higher values typically mean more light detected (for light sensors) or closer proximity (for IR sensors), depending on the sensor type.

[PICTURE: Analog sensor screen showing live bar graph or numeric readings for each port]

Digital Sensors

Shows ON or OFF for each configured digital port. Useful for verifying that bump sensors and buttons respond when pressed.

Motors

Shows the back-EMF reading for each motor (an indirect measure of motor speed). You can also set motor power directly from this screen for testing:

  • Tap a motor to select it
  • Use the on-screen slider or buttons to set the power level (-100 to 100)
  • Tap Stop or set power to 0 to stop the motor

[PICTURE: Motor control screen with power slider and back-EMF reading]

Servos

Shows the current position for each servo (0–180°). Tap a servo and drag the slider to move it to a new position. Useful for finding the correct angles for your mechanism before writing code.

[PICTURE: Servo control screen with angle slider]

Battery

Shows the current battery voltage. A full charge is around 8.4V. Below approximately 6V the robot may not operate motors reliably.

Temperature

Shows internal temperature readings from the system.

Real-Time Updates

All values on the sensor screens update continuously. You can leave a sensor screen open while running a program to monitor values during execution.

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