Can someone help me understand why this student's code is skipping the very first sensor, sonar and moving on to the second command set.

Thank you.

#pragma config(Sensor, S1, touch, sensorTouch)
#pragma config(Sensor, S2, touch, sensorTouch)
#pragma config(Sensor, S3, lightsensor, sensorLightActive)
#pragma config(Sensor, S4, sonar, sensorSoundDB)
#pragma config(Motor, motorB, rightMotor, tmotorNXT, PIDControl, encoder)
#pragma config(Motor, motorC, leftMotor, tmotorNXT, PIDControl, encoder)
//*!!Code automatically generated by 'ROBOTC' configuration wizard !!*//

task main()
{
while(true)
{
while(SensorValue(sonar)> 25)

{
motor[motorB] = 30; // go forward until the distance is less than 25 cm
motor[motorC] = 30;
}

motor[motorB] = 20; // turn right
motor[motorC] = 40;
wait1Msec(1500);
}
while(SensorValue(touch) == 0)

{

if(SensorValue(lightsensor)< 50)

{
motor[motorB] = 60; //if the light value is more than 50 you turn left
motor[motorC] = 0;

}

else

{
motor[motorB] = 0; //if the light value is less than 50 you turn right
motor[motorC] = 60;

}


}
motor[motorB] = 0; //when the touch sensor is pushed the robot stops
motor[motorC] = 0;
}

You can't have both sensors named "touch". Rename them to "touch1" and "touch2" and all will be well. Make sure to modify the code, too, of course.

= Xander

I did this and nothing changed. The sonic sensor was still skipped over. So, I traded out the sensors, the cables and even ran the program on a different computer, without any success. Then for some odd reason, the program ran as expected on the robot. The students made a change on their distance for the ultrasonic sensor and it would not run. It's as if there is some glitch in the hardware and it pokes its ugly head out when it wants to!

I don't know what you meant by "skipping the sonar sensor over", but if you format the code with proper indentation, you will notice that it has a forever while-loop. It means the second while-loop with the touch and light sensors is "unreachable".