[chbot] Meeting Wednesday 20th February 2008

[Richard Jones]

Christchurch Robotics Meeting: Wednesday 20th February 2008

The first meeting of the year attracted over 28 people, another good turn
out with lots of new faces and an age range from 6 to, well I was too
polite to ask. There were more youngsters in the group than ever before, so
it may be worth considering whether we should lay on something especially
for the really young ones. We are still fortunate to be able to use the
Science Alive facilities and I am pleased to be able to give them a gold
coin collection of $33.80. Thanks for your donations, they are appreciated.
I have booked the Science Alive Seminar Room for the third Wednesday of
every even numbered month for 2008, but do check out our site
http://kiwibots.org just in case of any late changes. I had a wonderful
time, very educational, thought provoking and many of us found it hard to
leave. Thanks to everyone for coming. 

Attending Robots and Topics

I (Richard Jones) brought along the propeller proto board that I won at the
last meeting. Added to my proto board were interfaces cribbed from the
Parallax Demo Board. See their web site for the circuits for TV Video
(NTSC/PAL), colour VGA, Stereo Sound, and Microphone. The demos from the
Parallax software worked well showing off these interfaces. I also showed
an ultrasonic demo that I put together from a copy of the microphone
circuit with the 100k resistor changed to 5k6 to make it go _much_ faster
for the higher frequencies involved. The sender is driven from two port
pins in anti phase, and receiver displayed the sound pulse varying in
reception time on a scope style trace on the VGA monitor, the range is
about 1m and could easily be extended. I'll post the code in a seperate
email. By the next meeting I would like to have the ultrasonics and
propeller chip mounted in a robot...

Carl also won a proto board at the December meeting and brought it along
showing the VGA and PS2 keyboard interfaces running with a Sudoku game.
Very nice, looked very polished and I'm sure lots of hours went into it.
Thanks Carl. There are two more proto boards from the December meeting
still out in the wild. Maybe we'll get to see them put through their paces
next time.

William Wheelan (6) brought along his dad Stuart again. William talked us
through how he and his Dad put together the soccer playing robot kits from
DSE. He went on to give us a practical demo of the robots playing soccer
under remote control. Thanks William for coming along and sharing your
passion with us. Do come again if you can persuade your Mum do give you a
late pass or persuade your Dad to run an earlier session!

Hanno brought along a plate of cookies and his Dancebot. Hanno gave us a
fabulous presentation with insights into the complexities of getting a
robot to balance on two wheels involving gyros, accelerometers and fuzzy
logic, at the same time tempered with how much fun it will be to dance with
when the camera gets going tomorrow. Sounds like it should Jive and ChaCha
quite well if you have a belt buckle or 'T' shirt with a special pattern on
it. We also got to see Hannos Viewport product in action demonstrating how
to make the interfaces, maths and fuzzy logic visible on the Viewport
screen while the robot was in action. Very cool.

Eric Cummins bought along another set of walking robot legs and a video of
many sets of legs and a vast selection of assorted robots running around in
his garage. These looked like serious beasts, a dinosaur, robots from old
TV series, some shooting woooden pellets and balls. Some built to perform
useful chores like pouring beer, sticking out tongues and shooting. Eric
offered to have some of us round to see them close up. I'm keen. Here's the
rub, Erics walking bots walk with a many jointed gait and have no
processors. Very smart indeed.

All told a very lively and interesting session. If I’ve missed anything
or corrections are required just email the group. Thanks to all who came,
and especially those who bought items to share like robots, techie demos or
food.

Our next meeting will be on Wednesday 16th April 7.30pm in the Science
Alive Seminar Room. Keep and eye on http://kiwibots.org for late breaking
news. Photos from me and Hanno to follow.