When you initialize your variables playerX and playerY you don’t specify they are global, so the function is trying to set the value of a local variable that does not exist.
To fix this at the beginning of your update_coords function add global playerX, playerY
This tells the computer that playerX and playerY are the global variables you created earlier.
The new function would look like this:
def update_coords():
global playerX, playerY
playerX = tank.xcor()
playerY = tank.ycor()
playerHeading = tank.heading()
solved Code does not work in Python with turtle module [closed]