Course Page

If you have no experience with FANUC software, Industrial Electronics, or programming of any kind - and are starting from scratch, you should review these pages in the following order. This is not a complete list of available pages, others are linked within.

The order is chosen for ease of understanding. It starts with the components, safety devices, and terminology. It's important to know these first so you can understand what they are in later pages.

Introduction Materials

The following should be finished prior to working on the physical robot.

• Safety

You should review the safety policies specific to your institution and lab environment. We follow a strict safety procedure to protect the operator, nearby students, and the lab equipment from accidents.

Basic Materials

The following should be started as you begin working on the physical robot.

• Robot Hardware - Familiarize yourself with the terminology used in robotics.
• Teach Pendant - All direct robot interaction in our lab is done through the teach pendant. While it is possible to control and upload programs through external devices, the teach pendant is specially designed to make programming easy.
• Jogging - You will need to jog the robot to be able to teach points in motion programs. It is important to focus on remembering the directions of each axis and get a feel for the buttons on the teach pendant. An acceptable level to be at when moving past this section is to be able to open a book with the robot's vacuum tool without mashing jog keys.

Novice Materials

The following are novice-level materials that will get you to creating simple programs.

• Motion Instructions - You will learn to write lines of code that, when run, will result in moving the robot to different positions and orientations in space. Motion instructions are intuitive and let you define parameters other than just positions - such as speed, path, acceleration, and accuracy.
  • The EDIT and SELECT Screens - These are the screens you will primarily be utilizing to create and edit programs. Focus on being able to navigate between programs, create new programs, add and edit motion instructions, and use the edit commands such as insert, delete, and copy

• Frames - The robot is capable of calculating positions in reference to things the user may define, making it easier to work using numeric coordinates and tools. Before writing intermediate-level programs, the accuracy of the Tool Frame should always be confirmed and a User frame defined to the work area. When working on this section, focus on creating tool and user frames, as well as switching between available frames of reference for jogging and teaching points. The three-point methods are sufficient for our labs and projects.
• File Manipulation (This page has not yet been built)
  • Backups and Images Lab (This page has not yet been built)
• Display Options (This page has not yet been built)

Intermediate Materials

The following are intermediate materials to get you creating real programs that can work in the field.

• Data - Gain an understanding of data types. Registers, Position Registers, editing values and viewing them as they change.
• Non-Motion Instructions - Robot programming is much more than just teaching every single point the robot will reach. Using non-motion instructions, tasks can be automated to adjust to variables, repeat with variation, or integrate with external systems.
  • Industrial Sensors Homework Assignment
• Programs
  • Edit Commands - Similar to the "right click" menu on a computer, the edit commands allow you to cut, copy, paste, delete and a variety of other functions in the EDIT page.
  • Final Projects Information

• Offsets

Additional Practice Materials

This section lists labs for practice combining above concepts and materials. They are much less guided, requiring a basic understanding of the individual concepts they use.

General Reference Materials

The following are reference pages, good for information and should be reviewed periodically to help your understanding.

• Best Practices
• Glossary of Terms (External Site)

The following goes beyond the scope of our first semester course, but are good for reference since you'll still have access to this in the future.

• Racks
• Wiring Directly To The Honda Connectors

• iRVision