Needed software
This year’s competition will be exclusively online. Therefore, you will need a couple of programs to run on your computer and complete the challenges. On this page, you can find all the software you need to download and to prepare for the championship.
You may breathe easily, as almost all the software is FREE.
Regarding Virtual Robotics Toolkit, which requires a paid subscription, our partners from Cogmation Robotics will provide a 3 months license for each registered user before the first stage of the competition, for FREE. The license will be emailed, a couple of days before the first stage of the championship.
If you register later, you can participate as well, but you will need to use your own VRT license or the trial version. But you can still participate for FREE, with no other fees.
1. Virtual Robotics Simulator
This software will be the simulator in which all the challenges will take place. It is one of the best tools out there to simulate real world physics and to easily import virtually built robots from other software. Even though the software has a subscription fee, you may try it based on the trial version.
For IRC, you may ask the organizers to provide you a special key, offered by Cogmation Robotics, in order to have full access during all the stages. Also, for not having any compatibility issues, we recommend downloading the installer we offer (Windows only), from our local server.
This software has no alternatives and it is mandatory. The working version should be 157.
2. LEGO EV3 Mindstorms Software
This software will be the one used for coding the program of the robot. It is the original software, designed to program the EV3 Brick and works flawless with the Virtual Robotics Simulator. It is FREE and can be downloaded from the provided link on the right.
There is a new version of EV3 software now available (the Scratch-like version), but we could not make the wireless connection work with Virtual Robotics Simulator. Therefore, we suggest installing the older version, which is recommended by Cogmation as well.
This software is mandatory. Although there are compatible alternatives (which function with Virtual Robotics Toolkit) such as:
- Microsoft MakeCode – tested and recommended by Cogmation;
- EV3 Basic – tested by us, but there are some things that are not working as designed.
3. LEGO Digital Designer
This software will be the one used for building your virtual robot. This software is FREE.
You will import the saved design into the Virtual Robotics Simulator and program it for the challenge. To make sure you can import the robot, the design must be saved as a .ldr file.
Because the software has been discontinued, we recommend using the version we provide (on the link on the right), to be sure there are no compatibility issues. The known working version of this software is 4.3.11.
This software is mandatory. Although there are fully compatible alternatives (which function with Virtual Robotics Toolkit) such as:
4. LDraw
This software will be also used for building your virtual robot. This software is FREE.
Sometimes, importing a robot into Virtual Robotics Toolkit from other applications may have errors. LDraw is natively compatible with Virtual Robotics Toolkit, so if such problems occur, you should load your model in LDraw and export it from it.
This software is optional, but may be the only one used to build the robots.
5. OBS Studio
This software will be used to record your screen while the robot is running in the simulator. This software is FREE.
In order to setup the application, you may use this video tutorial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c9n9NFx54Zk
This software is mandatory. Although there are alternatives such as:
- Camtasia – free trial;
- Camstudio – FREE;
- Screen-O-Matic Screen Recorder – FREE for personal use.
