[chbot] Chch Robotics Meeting Report: Wed 17th February

[Richard Jones]

We had a select gathering on a wet evening.
Kay brought along a life size pair of walking legs supported on a mock
Zimmer frame with wheels. The legs walked even more realistically than last
time we saw them.
Carl brought a 5 channel sound system which he gave away for repair, and
showed the iPhone application that he's been working on.
Charles showed a stepper motor based robot platform using 24v 7.5 degree
steppers, discrete darlington transistor drivers, arduino control board and
a roll on deodorant front castor. The robot moved under control of switches
for direction and a potentiometer for speed. Charles also talked about what
CAD packages people use, especially those where you may start for free and
upgrade to a more capable package.
I took along my 1.8 degree stepper motor based micromouse, still not moving
on its own, maybe next time. It uses the kiwipatch pcb available from
http://brightsparks.org.nz. Students get a free kiwipatch board in exchange
for a photograph of how the last one was used. Otherwise they cost $4 each
and a great for mounting PICAXE or AVR chips.
Steve brought an educational puzzle/display nearing completion. It had heaps
of LEDs and large removable puzzle knobs with embedded magnets and fancy
flashing led sequences. All controlled by a pic axe with darlington driver
ICs. When it has the artwork incorporated it should be great fun to use.
Hanno showed us his 12 blocks programming language for young children
integrated with a Propeller board, flashing LEDs with just a few mouse
clicks. It now has forward and back annotation between the 12 blocks
graphical programming language and the spin files that it creates for the
propeller.
Phil talked about Chch Creative space now rebranding as Space Craft. They
currently meet on Wednesday nights from 7pm to 11pm at the Canterbury
Innovation Incubator, 200 Armagh Street, Christchurch<http://tinyurl.com/ciinz>
http://spacecraft.org.nz/
Sachin talked about his six legged walking platform having problems moving
under its own weight, I would love to see that.
Jimmy brought along his ATTiny2313 USB programmer and we put some code into
it, let us know when its is programming AVR micros.
Sorry no photos this time. Let me know if I have missed anything.
Our next meeting will be on Wednesday 21st April 2010 at 6.30pm in the
Science Alive Seminar Room. See you there!

Richard Jones
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