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What we did on Wed 17th Feb 2010 |
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Written by RichardJones
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Thursday, 18 February 2010 |
We had a select gathering on a wet evening.
Kay brought along a life size pair of walking legs supported on a mock Zimmer frame with wheels. The legs walked even more realistically than last time we saw them.
Carl brought a 5 channel sound system which he gave away for repair, and showed the iPhone application that he's been working on.
Charles showed a stepper motor based robot platform using 24v 7.5 degree steppers, discrete darlington transistor drivers, arduino control board and a roll on deodorant front castor. The robot moved under control of switches for direction and a potentiometer for speed. Charles also talked about what CAD packages people use, especially those where you may start for free and upgrade to a more capable package.
I took along my 1.8 degree stepper motor based micromouse, still not moving on its own, maybe next time. It uses the kiwipatch pcb available from http://brightsparks.org.nz. Students get a free kiwipatch board in exchange for a photograph of how the last one was used. Otherwise they cost $4 each and are great for mounting PICAXE or AVR chips.
Steve brought an educational puzzle/display nearing completion. It had heaps of LEDs and large removable puzzle knobs with embedded magnets and fancy flashing led sequences. All controlled by a pic axe with darlington driver ICs. When it has the artwork incorporated it should be great fun to use.
Hanno showed us his 12 blocks programming language for young children integrated with a Propeller board, flashing LEDs with just a few mouse clicks. It now has forward and back annotation between the 12 blocks graphical programming language and the spin files that it creates for the propeller.
Phil talked about Chch Creative space now rebranding as Space Craft. They currently meet on Wednesday nights from 7pm to 11pm at the Canterbury Innovation Incubator, 200 Armagh Street, Christchurch http://spacecraft.org.nz/
Sachin talked about his six legged walking platform having problems moving under its own weight, I would love to see that.
Jimmy brought along his ATTiny2313 USB programmer and we put some code into it, let us know when its is programming AVR micros.
Sorry no photos this time. Let me know if I have missed anything.
Our next meeting will be on Wednesday 21st April 2010 at 6.30pm in the Science Alive Seminar Room. See you there!
More info on http://kiwibots.org
Richard Jones
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Meeting Report Tue 15th Dec 2009 |
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Written by RichardJones
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Wednesday, 16 December 2009 |
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Last Updated ( Wednesday, 16 December 2009 )
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Meeting Report Tue 20th Oct 2009 |
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Written by RichardJones
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Friday, 23 October 2009 |
We had a good turn out. The gold coin collection raised $23.20 for Science
Alive which was much appreciated. Thanks to all who came, and to those who
brought items to show and share. For those who could not make it here is an
account of what we got up to. Feel free send errors, omissions, additions
and suggestions for next session to our mailing list. Neville (Science
Alive CEO) visited briefly and mentioned that our members would be welcome
to contribute robot exhibits to a forthcoming robot exhibition at Science
Alive. More details as they become available.
Here is a link to pictures of some of the robots attending the event:
http://picasaweb.google.com/rjchchnz/ChchRobotics2009October?feat=directlink
We started with the challenge to locate and push drink cans off the table.
Hayley came along with a Lego robot with an innovative pusher linked to a
table edge detector using a touch sensor. It performed really well and
Hayley gave us a good description of the software that drives it.
Peter brought along the Roomba vacuum cleaner which did an eccentric but
effective job of pushing off all the cans. Peter also had his lawn mower on
display tethered by an electric field indoors, but also doing a good job of
cutting the grass verge outside while navigating away from obstacles like
walls.
I brought along a Lego robot with can lifter ready for next sessions
challenge to locate cans and lift them off the table. Next time I'll bring
it along with the software and charged batteries!
Simon showed a great video of a cup catching robot programmed as part of
the mechatronics degree coursework.
http://www.mechatronics.canterbury.ac.nz
Jimmy spoke about V-USB (formerly AVR-USB) and derived projects that can be
used amongst other things as a USB boot loader
http://www.obdev.at/products/vusb/index.html
Sanchin and Jimmy talked briefly about progress on the hexapod.
I showed the ATmega328 kits, Ladyada usb programmer housed in an old usb
mouse and a bootloader serial interface. Most of the kits were collected
and hopefully we will see some of these kits built into robots in future
sessions. I propose to hold a construction evening at Chch Creative Space
on Wednesday 4th November 7pm. I expect the primary goal of this session
will be to assist with surface mount components and program bootloaders for
those who want them. Bring you own tools and a tray or mat to protect the
tables. Phil says pizza boxes work well. Construction details on http://homepages.ihug.co.nz/~rjtp
Phil mentioned that Chch Creative Space will be closed for Kiwi PyCon 2009,
on November 7 - 8 http://nz.pycon.org/
Hanno spoke about 12 bricks and his forthcoming book to be published in
February. More details at http://mydancebot.com/
Our next meeting will be on Tuesday 15th December just before Christmas, I
suggest we bring along some special eats to celebrate. Robot themed even
better!
Richard
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Last Updated ( Friday, 23 October 2009 )
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