[chbot] Introduction (was: Re: Last two and a bit days of the garage sale....)

[follower]

> New Deal..... $30 a box....
Heh, I wonder where you got that idea from? :-)

Hi all, thanks to Mike for mentioning chbot to me when I was at his
garage sale picking up a bargain.

I was pleased to learn about the group and interested to see a few
names I recognise from other technical meetups around Christchurch.
(Although I did have a little trouble finding your current, active
website--might pay to ask Mike to update
<http://www.kiwacan.co.nz/chbot/> when he's got a moment!)

While I don't have a specific plan to build a robot I am interested in
electronics and automation--you can check out some of my projects
here: <http://code.rancidbacon.com/>. I'm also keen to meet people
doing cool techy stuff in Christchurch or New Zealand and encourage
cross-group pollination.

Along those lines, I help organise a monthly techy dinner group "The
Valley in Christchurch" <http://groups.google.com/group/tvic> and
would like to extend an invitation to chbot inhabitants to attend
also.

We actually had a great night this past month visiting the Geekosystem
<http://physicsroom.org.nz/gallery/2008/ageekosystem/> and having a
hardware hacking session. While the walk-in workshops aren't running
now some of you might be interested in checking it out. There's a few
interesting historical items there also. (Some of you might have seen
an earlier TVIC hacking session on the Make blog:
<http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2007/12/old_cdrom_xmas_lights.html>)

Also, if you have a blog please let me know and I can add it to Planet
NZTech <http://planet.nztech.org/> which aims to aggregate the blogs
of New Zealanders or New Zealand residents who are doing stuff in the
tech industry.

I was disappointed to learn about this month's meeting a week too late
but hope to be able to make the April event.

Looking forward to seeing what others are up to and sharing what
others might be interested in...

--Phil.