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Meeting Report: Tuesday 18th August 2009 |
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Written by RichardJones
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Wednesday, 19 August 2009 |
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We had a good turn out, on another cold and wet winter night. The gold coin collection raised $11.90 for Science Alive which was much appreciated. Thanks to all who came, and to those who brought items to show and share. Our next meeting will be on Tuesday 20th October at 6.30pm. 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.
Following on the the Robocup Christchurch competition held on the 9th of August we had a nice collection of Rescue robots along:
Hayley demonstrated her 1st prize winning robot from the primary section. The robot performed nicely, running around all the obstacles, taking the green hint squares and pushing the victim out of the swamp. Hayley then gave us a captivating talk about how the robot software works and fielded heaps of questions. Thanks Hayley, and best of luck in the national competition in Auckland on 5th September.
Luke and Sam brought along their rescue robot and showed it running running on the tiles. Thanks guys.
Yuito brought along his sister and Dad and a rebuilt rescue robot that also started out along the tiles but did not complete. Thanks for showing us the new build.
Not to be outdone John (from Science Alive) showed us his rescue robot. That too ran but needs considerable work before entering into the wrinkly section of Robocup Junior! John plans to be a Dad by the next meeting date. Good luck.
Hanno showed us his new Robotic creation called 12 Blocks. Thanks for another great product Hanno, more info here: http://12blocks.com
Jill told us about the great programming environment from MIT called Scratch. If you have not played with Scratch have a go: http://scratch.mit.edu/ and of course show it to any young ones who might be interested.
Sachin and Jimmy told us about progress on the Crab / Hexapod. Next step is to order servos, prototype PCBs, locate some bearing supplies, and figure out mechanical design. More to follow on the mailing list... You can find Sachins robot designs here: http://sachin.surendran.googlepages.com/
Jimmy showed us his 4 wheeled robot platform built for a school project. It certainly ran nicely under our chairs and will have its brain fitted soon.
Peter stole the late show with his radio controlled lawn mower which lumbered around the room, flashed warning lights and had a threatening amount of power to the cutters. Next steps will be autonomous operation within a defined boundary and safety cutouts.
I brought along my micromouse, seen for the first time last session and showed the Eclipse IDE with the CDT and AVR plugins for handy AVR 'C' code development using the AVR-GCC tool chain. More info here: http://www.eclipse.org/
Phil showed us a USB Arduino board and also showed us around the development tools and how to move beyond the first LED flashing step. It certainly de-mystified the Arduino toolchain for me. Arduino a great way to overcome the first hurdle if stuck on either hardware or software development. More info here: http://www.arduino.cc/ Phil has listed hardware distributers here: http://code.rancidbacon.com/ArduinoNewZealand
You can find our mailing list archives or join the mailing list here: http://lists.ourshack.com/mailman/listinfo/chchrobotics
Richard Jones |
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Last Updated ( Sunday, 04 October 2009 )
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Meeting Report Tuesday 16th June 2009 |
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Written by RichardJones
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Thursday, 18 June 2009 |
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Meeting Report Tuesday 16th June 2009 We had a small gathering on a dark, cold and wet winter night. The gold coin collection raised $12 for Science Alive which was much appreciated. Thanks to all who braved the cold, and a special thanks to Gail at Science Alive who left the heating on for us, and to those who brought items to show and share. Our next meeting will be on Tuesday 18th August at 6.30pm. Suggestions for topic welcome. 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 and I'll add them to the http://kiwibots.org edition. I brought along the new micromouse, with lathe cut wheels, single axle, rotation sensors and motor drive hooked up to the AVR with one forward looking optical wall sensor. Quite a bit further to go, I expect to have it running around a maze soon. Hanno showed us Parallax Propeller based products, his IO dream kit, propscope, viewport, sections from his new book, and a rebuilt balancing robot. Hanno raffled a couple of propeller prototyping kits. We would love to see these back working next time. Peter showed some strong ex garage door opener motors running on a 12v PSU and large wheels ready for fitting to the robot lawnmower. Peter also brought along his electric bicycle which we may get to try when the weather is a little more in our favour. Morris showed us some motors and wheels from printers running round the floor tethered to a PC PSU, an Asus wireless router with USB connection and a USB serial port ripe for robotic applications and $5-$10 servos and a servo tester. John came along with the Robocup rescue tiles and football at our request, sadly no takers came to use them. The Robocup competition for primary & secondary age students is Sunday 9th August. Details here: http://www.sciencealive.co.nz/robotics/RoboCup%202009%20Chch%20Newsletter.pdf Katana showed us a rescue grab mechanism from http://www.robokits.co.nz/ which did a very nice job of picking up a small Robocup rescue can. Jimmy brought along his ATTiny2313 for which he built a programmer and had LEDs flashing nicely from 'C' code using the winavr/gcc tool chain. Quite a small turn out by recent standards with some new faces but some very thought provoking demos and ideas came up. |
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Last Updated ( Thursday, 18 June 2009 )
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Meeting Report Tue 14th April 2009 |
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Written by RichardJones
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Wednesday, 15 April 2009 |
The evening was very well attended. We were pleased to welcome Kate Coleman with parents and youngsters from http://cagcy.org.nz as well as many of our regular attendees. The gold coin collection raised $82 for Science Alive which was very much appreciated. Thanks to all who came, especially our speakers John Wynyard and Charles Manning who put so much energy and preparation into their presentations. Meetings are now held on 3rd Tuesday of even numbered months. Next meeting will be on Tuesday June 16th 2009 in the Science Alive Seminar Room. Offers of presentations and topics for our next session most welcome. For those who were not able to make it, here is a record of what we did (do let me know if it needs updating) ...
John Wynyard from Science Alive gave us an introduction to Robocup Junior Rescue, Soccer, Dance and Theatre categories with live demonstrations of robots performing rescue and soccer challenges. The Robocup web site is due to be updated soon with new rules, application forms and venues. See: http://www.robocupjunior.org.nz for more details. John has an .avi movie on DVD available with scenes from the National Competition, this gives an idea of the standard required to get to national level. Our regional competition will be held at Selwyn House School on 9th August 2009. Stuart Whelan has offered to coordinate individuals, not associated with a school entry, into teams providing a venue, space, and technical assistance. Stuart may be contacted by email here:
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Alex brought along a new NXT sumo robot that had a very neat spiked roller to catch and pull the oponent off its wheels. It gave a very convincing demo of pushing my robot, Gnasher, out of the Sumo ring. Thanks Alex for bringing the robot and your Dad.
Peter showed more robots from the Robokits range including a tiny robot from Polulu with very smooth line following action. Peter has a huge range of NXT sensors in stock. See the whole lot at http://www.robokits.co.nz/
Matthew showed us an ingenious way to create a free running ball castor from a ball bearing held captive in a wooden frame with a nut and bolt to run in.
Timothy showed a line following robot made from Tamaya gearbox and wheels, avr micro and light sensors with discrete H bridges. Timothy has plans to get his robot maze solving, maybe it will be maze solving before mine.
Phil told us about creative/project/hacker/maker space in Christchurch where you can meet like minded folks to discuss and make things. Sessions are currently on Sunday afternoons and Wednesday evenings at the Canterbury Innovation Incubator, 200 Armagh Street, Christchurch. see: http://chchspace.nztech.org/
Charles Manning delivered a very practical introduction to making your own sensors for Lego NXT. Everything from how to cope with crimping the strange connectors, some really simple switch, and opto interfaces through to active blocks to more than double the NXT sensor capability. You find Charles slideshow here: http://embeddedjanitor.blogspot.com/ Charles recommended a book that parallels much of his work: http://www.extremenxt.com/books.htm
After the meeting Timothy asked me how my micromouse maze solving simulation colour character display is implimented. The complete code can be found here:
http://homepages.ihug.co.nz/~rjtp/Micromouse/Simulations/LinuxMouseSim.tar.gz
the display function is in file navigator.c Navigator_ShowMaze( ). Documentation on escape sequences can be found here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ANSI_escape_code |
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Last Updated ( Friday, 24 April 2009 )
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