Programming the robot to move forward

Before we program our robot, we need to attach the cables. Plug in cables from the motors into ports B and C on the EV3 intelligent brick.

Let's write a simple program to test out our robots. Drag a Move Steering block onto the Programming Canvas and place it next to the Start block, as shown in the following screenshot:

Using the drop-down menu, set the Move Steering block to On for Rotations. Set the number of rotations of the wheels to 5 as shown in the following screenshot. Remember that the motors have built-in shaft encoders that can tell how far they have rotated. The direction can be set to zero, which is straight ahead. The power level can be set to 50 percent. The motors are set to ports B and C. This is different from what we saw in Chapter 2, Mechanical Design, where the Large Motor block was only controlling one motor. The Move Steering block controls two motors at once, which is ideal for driving.

Although not required, you can end with a...