Switch block

Switch statements are powerful, because they allow you to change the behavior of your robot based on some condition. For example, let's say you're writing a program-- and I always draw out my programs first-- which does something, say it turns on the motors and plays a sound, and you get to a point where you want to branch the behavior based on a condition. For example, if the touch sensor is pressed, go do this, and if the touch sensor is not pressed, then go do this. Now this little branch here is our switch statement in action, and you should think of it as actually splitting the sequence beam into two possible execution paths. OK. So let's do a very simple example, such as an object detector. [SERIES OF BEEPING SOUNDS] --build our simple object detector. The switch statement is under flow and is this icon right here. And as you can see, it has split the sequence beam into two possible execution paths, which are controlled by the setting. Now the setting is down here. We have it set to be controlled by a sensor, however, we can select any sensor we want to control this. So we're going to do an object detector, but we could just as easily use a sound level to control the execution-- maybe it'll detect the presence of a clap-- or a light sensor-- if it's bright, it'll control the execution. So I'm going to select ultrasonic sensor and make sure I identify the correct port it is plugged into. This is my most common source of error. I have it plugged into Port 3. And now the important part is the comparison. When we use words like close, bright, or loud, these are arbitrary. We need to tell our program exactly what we mean by close. In this case, I'm going to drag the slider between these two states, close and far, and I'm going to say close is when we're less than 20 inches. Now close, which is represented by this flower icon, means our reading if there is an object less than 20 centimeters, and this mountain, which is our far state, is anything greater than 20 centimeters away or if there's no object at all. So when we look up here at our switch statement, we see there's a ultrasonic sensor, so that's correct, and there's now a flower and a mountain reminding us if something is detected, it's going to take this top path, and otherwise, it's going to take this bottom path. I said we will generate a tone if we detect an object, so I go to my output here, find the sound block, and drag the sound block onto the top part of my switch statement. And now you can clearly see how there's two execution paths. If it detects something, it'll play the sound block. Otherwise, it will do nothing. And what do we want it to do if it detects an object? Let's have the sound block play a tone. It's set to sound file, but I can just click tone here. And then I'll click a key-- let's say, it will play a C if it detects an object. Before I run this, I want to put it inside a loop. Otherwise, this will just quickly execute, and I won't have any dynamic behavior. So I'm going to grab loop from my flow and drop it here. The loop is empty by default, and it's going to be an infinite loop, which is what we want. So we don't need to change anything. I just need to drag-- I'm going to highlight all of this-- and drag it into my loop. So there it goes. It automatically expanded my loop, and there's my little switch statement inside. So let's run it and see if it works. [SERIES OF BEEPING SOUNDS]