VEX Shield for Arduino

The VEX robotics design system includes a lot of electronic motors and sensors that are nice and easy to use. Controlling them from an Arduino microcontroller is not very complicated, but requires a lot of wire routing and power distribution that can turn a breadboard into a bird’s nest. This shield takes care of routing the necessary power and signal pins to provide convenient 3-pin header connections that VEX components naturally plug in to.

The board was designed in Eagle CAD V6.4. This was my first Eagle CAD project to go from idea to finished design. The software is actually incredibly nice to use, once you learn the conventions of the interface. A compressed folder of the design files is available here.

The bill of materials for this board is available here. Estimated cost for components is $15.39. This does not include the cost of the printed PCB.

NOTE: The 5.1K and 150 ohm resistors in the parts list were selected as “close enough” to the desired 5K and 140 ohm resistors.