How to Use Athena

Athena is Synthiam’s AI-powered technical support assistant, designed specifically to help you build, program, debug, and refine robots using the ARC platform. Athena has full access to Synthiam’s entire support documentation, including every Robot Skill manual, tutorial, and technical guide. This allows her to give highly accurate, context-aware advice about robot hardware, ARC Skills, JavaScript, EZ-Script, Blockly, configuration steps, debugging strategies, and best practices.

Ask Clear, Detailed Questions

Athena performs best when you provide precise and structured information. Good questions clearly describe your robot hardware, the Robot Skills being used, any code involved, and the goal you are trying to accomplish. Questions such as “My robot won’t move” can only produce generic troubleshooting steps, but a detailed version like “When using the Auto Positioner and the HDD Servos on port D3 and D4, the robot moves once and then stops” allows Athena to reference the correct documentation and provide targeted answers.

The more detail you include, the better Athena can help: robot model, ARC version, wiring, configuration settings, screenshot descriptions, skill names, variable names, expected vs. actual behavior, and what you have tried so far. Athena uses all of this to generate complete and actionable responses, often pointing you to the correct Robot Skill documentation or example.

Be Mindful of the Token Window Limit

Athena operates within a maximum conversational memory window known as a context window. This window holds the entire conversation history in order for Athena to maintain continuity. If the conversation becomes too long or includes extremely large blocks of code or logs, the earliest parts of the conversation may be truncated automatically as the window shifts forward.

For this reason:

• Avoid posting very large code snippets unless absolutely necessary.
• If your code is long, consider uploading only the relevant parts first.
• If you must send the whole file, mention that it is complete so Athena knows not to assume anything is missing.
• When the conversation becomes too long, consider posting a fresh “New Question” and include a concise summary.

When the window overflows, some early details may disappear, which can cause Athena to lose critical context. Keeping questions concise and focused prevents this.

Request Code in One Language at a Time

Athena can write example code in any ARC-supported language, but asking for multiple languages at once (e.g., “Show this in JavaScript and EZ-Script”) unnecessarily consumes space in the conversation window. This increases the chance of important earlier details being truncated.

For best results:

• Request only one language at a time.
• If you want a second language afterward, ask for a new version after the first answer is complete.

This keeps the discussion clean, prevents confusion, and reduces token usage.

Selecting Hardware and Robot Skills Helps Athena

When you ask a question on Synthiam.com and choose the hardware type and the Robot Skills used in your project, Athena receives structured metadata describing your robot. This greatly improves her accuracy. She can reference the correct documentation automatically, understand the skill interactions, and give more precise troubleshooting advice.

If you aren’t sure which Robot Skills apply, pick the ones involved in your question. Athena will use that to guide you.

Examples of Good Questions

Effective: “Using the Camera Device and Object Recognition skill, I am trying to track a colored ball. The robot moves once toward the target, but then pauses. My Update Loop is set to 500 ms. Here is the section of code from my JavaScript script responsible for movement.”

Ineffective: “Tracking doesn’t work.”

Good questions allow Athena to look up relevant documentation, reference compatibility notes, and provide examples or debugging tips that match your exact scenario.

Athena Can Reference All Synthiam Documentation

Athena is fully integrated with Synthiam’s entire support knowledge base, including:

• All Robot Skill manuals
• Technical documentation for ARC features
• Tutorials and guides
• JavaScript and EZ-Script API references
• Hardware compatibility notes

This allows her to answer questions faster and more accurately than human support alone. She can instantly cross-reference sections, verify parameter names, and identify related skills that impact your setup.

Start Fresh When Needed

Because long conversations eventually run out of token window, you may sometimes notice Athena forgetting something from earlier in the thread. If that happens, simply start a new question with a concise summary and reattach the necessary details. Athena will treat the new thread as a clean slate and respond with full accuracy.

Summary

By asking focused, detailed questions; avoiding unnecessary multi-language duplication; managing token window usage; and selecting the correct hardware and skills, you will get the most accurate and comprehensive support Athena can offer. She is built to help you solve problems, build sophisticated robots, and take full advantage of ARC — and the more context you give her, the more effective she becomes.