[chbot] Line Follower Night - Just 2 weeks away.

[Richard Jones]

Hanno has very kindly placed this ad in the free papers Wots On columns for us :

Christchurch Robotics Group.

Bring along your line following robots. Followed by show and tell.
People of all ages and robots welcome.
www.kiwibots.org Gold Coin Donation, Wednesday 20th August 7.30-9:30pm,
Science Alive Seminar Room

What we could not say in 30 words is that there will be prizes to be awarded at the judges discretion. Any functioning line following robots brought along will be eligible. I suggest that for our first challenge night we have as few rules as possible. Lines to be followed could be table edges, black tape, white tape, buried wires, or even maze walls. I'll bring along some candidate lines and maze walls but feel free to bring your own favourite line for your robot to follow. Prize categories might be fastest, smallest, largest robot, youngest contestant, best dressed robot, most entertaining and so on. Doors open at about 7pm if you need time to set up or chat.

Also there will be our now famous free stuff table. Feel free to contribute and be sure to leave the table empty by the end of the evening. But please bring something back made into a robot. Last month the last of Mikes boxes went and two optical mice went to a good home and hopefully we'll see them back doing something robotic. For the free stuff table this time I have some old hard drives, a panel of eight 360 degree turn potentiometers, an old oscilloscope, some printed circuit boards and the pile is still growing. Feel free to add generously. If you think old hard drives are no use to anyone check this out: http://hackedgadgets.com/2006/04/25/top-5-uses-for-a-dead-hard-drive/

Its worth mentioning that the Home Brew Robotics Club have been busy loading up their wiki. They invited  roboticists world wide to contribute. I've added a member page and a pointer to our kiwibots site. Their wiki is a mine of information and ideas. Have a look at http://www.hbrobotics.org/wiki/index.php5/Main_Page

Since the last meeting I've been building my AVR micro board into a line following robot that may be working by next meeting. 

Finally on Sunday 17th August Junior Robocup Challenge will be happening at Science Alive. More details here: http://www.robocupjunior.org.nz/RoboCup%20Junior%202008.htm

Anyone else have news to add?

Cheers

Richard Jones