[chbot] ChchRobotics Meeting Report 15 August 2007

[Richard Jones]

Christchurch Robotics Group Meeting. Wednesday 15th August 2007

Thank you for those who came last night.  A good turnout, some new faces
and some 
interesting topics to talk about and things to see. Thanks too for those
whose sent appologies, we can't all make every session. We are still
fortunate to be able to use the Science Alive! facilities, so please keep
your gold coin donations coming in, they are appreciated.

This is the first meeting that I (Richard Jones) have unlocked the room
for, with Andrew having moved to Japan for a while. All went according to
plan.

Organisational Developments since the last Meeting
We advertised the meeting to the New Zealand Electronicis Institute, the
Bright Sparks organisation and Tait Electronics. Hopefully this approach
will allow us to gently grow our numbers. Stimulating new thoughts and
ideas. I would like to extend our advertising and will inform Christchurch
Soar as our next meeting should be of interest to their members.

Also we have a prototype web site: http://groups.msn.com/chchrobotics
The web site has our programme, Science Alive directions, Table Top
Challenge and Micromouse information. Either subscribe or send me your
content if you would like to have information posted.

Attending Robots and Topics
Peter Harris brought along his Roomba robotic vacuum cleaner. It was great.
We saw it perform on table tops without falling off. We saw it navigate
around many obstacles without getting stuck. We saw it concentrate on areas
of floor that we told it needed full attention. It spiralled out, and
spiralled back. We saw it pick up our biscuit crumbs. We saw it needing to
be emptied. And watched it search for home and go back there for
recharging. And yes we took it to pieces and re-assembled it, and it was
fully functional again. (After a technical tap!)

Carl Ranson showed us his chunky robot propelled with car window winder
motors, furniture casters for support, 10A H bridges and SLA for drive with
his laptop for brains and 3 sharp IR distance measuring devices. The laptop
had a nice mimic of the sensor view and it chugged around the room bumping
into thin chair legs but avoiding upturned chairs nicely. Carl also showed
some more developments on Hough transforms using his laptop, and is closer
to reading bar codes with them and maybe poised for robotic vision.

Peter Morris showed his table top challenge robot still reliably staying on
the table, finding the fluorescent cube and pushing it off. Sorry I can't
remember its name. This is a very fine piece of work and is a delight to
see in action. Peter also showed us his Nixie Tube clock, constructed on
glass fibre PCBs. We were all very respectful of the 180V running round the
PCBs.

And I showed the Micromouse Maze simulator running in Python on PC and MAC.
It can now edit mazes, solve the best route problem in any maze with either
90 or 45 degree turns. Next I will train it to explore the maze in
competition style, and publish the code.

Statistics
10 In Attendance including 2 partners and 1 chauffeur
5 first timers, 5 been before.
3 from Tait Electronics
1 from Canterbury University
1 from Bright Sparks/Burnside High
10~ Biscuits eaten
3 Robots Moving

Next Meeting Wed 17th October 7.30pm Seminar Room:

GPS Boomerang presentation by Synco Reynders
Robotics Software Programming – Anyone
	Show new and old members how you program your 'bot.
You new Robotic developments

See you there!
Richard Jones