[chbot] Wed 15th Oct 2008 Meeting Report

[Richard Jones]

This was our first trial of a new format meeting running from 6.30pm to
9.30pm to allow people of different ages to come and go. We had ages from
six upwards and a total of 30 people attending with a gold coin collection
of $24. Thanks to everyone who came and especially those who made the full
3 hours, well done!

Our next meeting is special, as it will be just before Christmas. Bring
along Christmas goodies to eat and experience hands on Lego nxt robot
programming. Wed 17th December 6.30pm in the Technology Room at Science
Alive. $4 per person, Limit 30 people, two per robot. Register on the email
list or email richard.jones at tait.co.nz. To see if you are on the list go
to: http://kiwibots.org/calendar-2.html Thanks to John Wynard at Science
Alive for organising this.

We started with a DVD viewing of the Australian Robocup Junior competition
held in 2007, and Jill Pears spoke about the recent Auckland Finals in
which several Christchurch teams were successful. William kindly organised
the A4 Back Line sheets that I brought along into a track for robots to
follow.

Peter Linscott brought along one of his Tracked Robot kits programmed for
tabletop challenge. It did a fine job of navigating the table. These kits
are available from Peter at http://www.robokits.co.nz/

Our founder Andrew Errington has returned from his travels to Japan and
promised to bring some robut related things once his luggage is unpacked.

Carl brought along a big yellow lawn mower ready to be adapted for robotic
use. It could do with some of Peter Harris magic power control circuits,
Peter will be back from his travels when the grass has finished growing :-)

Phil talked about the Arduino project and gave us some interesting links:

http://planet.nztech.org/ aggregates the blogs of New Zealanders

http://code.rancidbacon.com/ // It sure aint fresh meat

http://groups.google.com/group/tvic Meet like minded geeks over a meal

http://www.arduino.cc/ Simple Atmel processor board for artists and
everyone else

Hanno showed his 2 wheeled balancing robot http://mydancebot.com/
performing on the table and floor and also brought along a line following
car.

I showed the progress on my Micromouse. All the major design and
construction is done, just the ultrasound sensor circuits to solder up and
the control software to do.

Charles Manning gave us a wonderful talk about the insides of the Lego nxt
and the structure of the firmware components of the Lejos project and his
contribution to porting Java from the rcx to nxt platforms. Charles also
gave us some tips about nxt sensors, his notes are here . Thanks Charles
for a fascinating talk.