07_SENSORS.md

Sensors Blocks

In word blocks, there is a quite big difference of how sensors behave as those azure sensors blocks, compared to yellow events blocks. When you are using them as events trigger, sensor will not retriger the event, until the sensor values changes to falsy and then back to truthy. In sensor block variant, if sensor stays true in for example while loop, it will keep triggering the event indefinitely.

In pythonBlocks, you can achieve both behaviors, but here we are going to cover the 'sensor block' variants.

Table of contents

1. color sensor is
2. color sensor (value)
3. color sensor reflection is
4. color sensor reflection (value)
5. color sensor RGBI
6. force sensor is
7. prassure in
8. distance sensor is
9. distance sensor (value)
10. is tilted
11. when is up
12. when gesture is
13. gesture (value)
14. angle (value)
15. set yaw angle to 0
16. acceleration (value)
17. angular velocity (value)
18. set sensor orientation to
19. orientation (value)
20. is button pressed
21. timer (value)
22. reset timer

color sensor is

color_sensor.color(port.A) == color.RED

usage:

if color_sensor.color(port.A) == color.RED:
    pass #your code here

color sensor (value)

color_sensor.color(port.A)

usage:

color_variable = color_sensor.color(port.A)

color sensor reflection is

color_sensor.reflection(port.A) < 50

• You can use any comparison operator comparison operator here.
• Value is in range 0 (black, no light reflected) to 100 (white, all light reflected).

color sensor reflection (value)

color_sensor.reflection(port.A)

color sensor RGBI

There is one more mode, that is not present in word blocks, and that is RGBI mode:

color_sensor.rgbi(port.A)

which returns tuple [red: int, green: int, blue: int, intensity: int]. So, if you want just red value, you can do:

color_sensor.rgbi(port.A)[0]

force sensor is

pressed:

force_sensor.pressed(port.A) == 1

released:

force_sensor.pressed(port.A) == 0

hard pressed:

force_sensor.force(port.A) > 50

prassure in

percentage:

force_sensor.force(port.A)

newton:

round(force_sensor.force(port.A) / 10)

distance sensor is

closer than:

percentage:

_distanceSensor.distance_percentage(port.A) < 15

cm:

_distanceSensor.distance_cm(port.A) < 15

inch:

_distanceSensor.distance_inch(port.A) < 15

farther than:

percentage:

_distanceSensor.distance_percentage(port.A) > 15

cm:

_distanceSensor.distance_cm(port.A) > 15

inch:

_distanceSensor.distance_inch(port.A) > 15

exactly at:

percentage:

_distanceSensor.distance_percentage(port.A) == 15

cm:

_distanceSensor.distance_cm(port.A) == 15

inch:

_distanceSensor.distance_inch(port.A) == 15

distance sensor (value)

percentage:

_distanceSensor.distance_percentage(port.A)

cm:

_distanceSensor.distance_cm(port.A)

inch:

_distanceSensor.distance_inch(port.A)

mm:

distanceSensor.distance(port.A)

is tilted

forward:

_motion_sensor.tilt_angles(1) > 130

backward:

_motion_sensor.tilt_angles(1) < -130

right:

_motion_sensor.tilt_angles(2) > 130

left:

_motion_sensor.tilt_angles(2) < -130

tilted (any direction):

_motion_sensor.tilted(0) == True

not tilted (any direction):

_motion_sensor.tilted(0) == False

when is up

note: basically, this is the same as when tilted *somewhere*, but breakpoint value is in the middle, which is 450 out of 900 instead of 130. There is one more option, not covered by when tilted which is when bottom is up, which you can implement like this:

_motion_sensor.upside_down(0) == True

when gesture is

shaken:

motion_sensor.gesture() = motion_sensor.SHAKEN

other gestures:

other possible values are: motion_sensor.TAPPED, motion_sensor.DOUBLE_TAPPED, motion_sensor.FALLING and motion_sensor.UNKNOWN which corresponds to 'no gesture'

gesture (value)

motion_sensor.gesture()

angle (value)

pitch:

_motion_sensor.tilt_angles(1)

roll:

_motion_sensor.tilt_angles(2)

yaw:

_motion_sensor.tilt_angles(0)

set yaw angle to 0

motion_sensor.reset_yaw(0)

acceleration (value)

motion_sensor.acceleration(False) # tuple of 3 values
motion_sensor.acceleration(False)[0] # x value
motion_sensor.acceleration(False)[1] # y value
motion_sensor.acceleration(False)[2] # z value

pass True as argument to get acceleration as raw, unfiltred values

angular velocity (value)

motion_sensor.angular_velocity(False) # tuple of 3 values
motion_sensor.angular_velocity(False)[0] # x value
motion_sensor.angular_velocity(False)[1] # y value
motion_sensor.angular_velocity(False)[2] # z value

pass True as argument to get angular velocity as raw, unfiltred values

set sensor orientation to

motion_sensor.set_yaw_face(motion_sensor.FRONT)

possible values are: motion_sensor.FRONT, motion_sensor.BACK, motion_sensor.LEFT, motion_sensor.RIGHT, motion_sensor.TOP and motion_sensor.BOTTOM

orientation (value)

motion_sensor.get_yaw_face()

is button pressed

left:

pressed:

button.pressed(button.LEFT) > 0

released:

button.pressed(button.LEFT) == 0

right:

pressed:

button.pressed(button.RIGHT) > 0

released:

button.pressed(button.RIGHT) == 0

timer (value)

returns time in milliseconds (in word blocks it is in seconds)

timer.get_time_ms()

reset timer

timer.reset_timer()