[chbot] ChchRobotics News September 2007

[Richard Jones]

ChchRobotics News September 2007

Next meeting
Our next meeting is in just one months time on Wed 17th October 7.30pm in
the Seminar Room of Science Alive in Christchurch NZ. There will be a
presentation on the GPS Boomerang by Synco Reynders. See
http://www.gpsboomerang.com/. If time allows members (that means all of us)
can also show or just talk about how we program our robots. Suggestions for
topics and contributors for future meetings are always very welcome.

WWW Site Progress
I set up a prototype web site on MSN a while ago, but it is slow, only
works properly with Internet Explorer, and cannot be backed up. So Carl
very kindly did a few experiments with the Joomla content management
system, in conjunction with fireboard it seems to meet our requirements. So
we took the next step and set up a temporary hosting arrangement from my
place running under Linux to serve the pages for us to further test the
idea. This is what remains to be done:
	Register a domain name and set it up.
	Add email capability to the Apache2 server, probably using Exim.
	Add forum pages using Fireboard.
	Transfer content from MSN.
	Add some nice custom ChchRobotics logos.
	Back it all up and find a permanent host.
Any offers of help gratefully received!
Link to the new Joomla site:
http://203-173-160-73.static.bliink.ihug.co.nz/
Link to the old msn site: http://groups.msn.com/chchrobotics

Micromouse Maze Progress
The plan is to have a complete 16 x 16 cell maze so that we can run
competitions. The maze floor is being built in sections for transportation
in a large car. We now have four floor sections cut out (one centre piece
to do), and in excess of 300 walls and 600 wall pins cut. All that is left
to do is the centre floor section and heaps of drilling and painting. Also
we will have some 3 x 3 cell training mazes that can be lent out. Contact
Richard Jones or come to the next meeting if you would like to borrow one.

Motor Control Item
Here is an interesting Item on Motor Control:
http://www.pldesignline.com/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=201805465
It outlines a quadrature shaft encoder that can be made simply, it can
detect direction of rotation. It  solves a problem thats been in the back
of my mind to know when a motor has started to travel in reverse. This will
be very handy for rapid direction changes when backtracking down dead end
maze sections.

Japan
I found Andrew Errington (ChchRobotics founder) on Skype the other day.
He's enjoying Japan and  has seen a really fast and tiny line following
mouse all in about a  25mm cube in size. Wow, hope he brings one back with
him!

Anyone else have interesting things to report?

Richard Jones
14th September 2007