Not that it really matter at this point since we already went to several competitions. We had a new algorithm and the robot wasn't available (being modified by the mechanical team). So we decided to quickly port the algorithm to the Virtual World to test things out. But the provided gripper bot's gripper does not turn up or down. The arm works, the gripper opens and closes but it doesn't turn up or down. Is this a known issue? When tele-operating the gripper to turn up or down, you can see it wiggled as if it was trying but got blocked.

We have just double checked this in the latest version of ROBOTC and the Ring it Up! Virtual World and were able to move, open, and close the arm, wrist, and gripper motors without any issues. I would double check to make sure you have the most up-to-date versions installed, and to make sure that the motor isn't getting conflicting forward/backwards commands. If you'd like you can send the code to me directly at jwatson@robotc.net and I'd be more than happy to take a look through and see if anything pops out as being potentially problematic.

John,
Thanks for offering to look at the code. I have sent you email with the link to the code. I did downloaded the latest Ring It Up world. Before the update, I wasn't even able to move the arm nor opening or closing the gripper. The latest update made the arm and the gripper working again but the wrist is still not functional. Note that this code was totally functional before and I haven't touched it since. So it is unlikely there is anything wrong with the code. At first I thought the motor definition might have changed but I checked the sample code and it looks like the motors are the same as before. In addition, like I said, it looks like the wrist was trying to move. It was wiggling but something mechanical seems to prevent it from moving.

Is this using the keyboard control or RobotC's joysticks?

If you're controlling it from RobotC, what command values are you setting the wrist motors to? The wrist motor/joint is a bit "sticky" (by unfortunate necessity under the current physics system); try to command it to +/-127 and see if that moves it.

This was using the xbox game controller connected to the USB port of my laptop. I had the wrist motor programmed at 30. It has worked nicely before. But I did think about that so I had increased the motor value to 100 and it was still not working.

Not sure what to suggest. The wrist starts moving for me at a command of about +/-80.

I will try it again tonight with a simplified version of the code. But with my previous code, I did try 100% power and it was still not moving, just wiggling. I will let you know how it goes.
Thanks.