[chbot] CHCH Robotics Group, meeting notes Robotics 19 Sept 2016

[Mark Atherton]

Hello everyone,

Good turnout, with 24 attendees and $24 collected and transferred to 
BR05 account. Balance is in the donation box.

Two new members, Chris and Peter; welcome.

With thanks on behalf of the group,

Mark Atherton

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Peter Harris turned up fully dressed to celebrate talk-like-a-pirate day.

Robin Gilks turned up with a wooden chest and handed out (chocolate) 
pieces-of-eight around the group. Thank you.

Ohh-arr-Jim-lad.

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Jeffrey Irons spent some time displaying his new model 
processor-controlled-wheeled-vehicle. He also discussed a home-cooked 
protocol allowing a desktop to communicate with a cluster of embedded 
processors.

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Kieran Scott brought in a laptop and Arduino dev kit and attracted quite 
a few people with questions and observations.

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The house feline turned up (ZL3MOG) and spent the evening mooching, as 
usual.

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Peter Harris and Mark Siddall are in the process of planning another 
solar equipment import. Peter made another presentation about this small 
business venture. Peter talked through his experiences, and associated 
business project. Also see https://openenergymonitor.org/emon/

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Robin Gilks discussed a specific software issue he bumped into during 
the week. Failure mechanism was caused through lack of bounds checking 
which nearly cost him a (large) set of batteries. Monitor IC was a DS2438.

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Peter Ellis brought in a small pile of 13V, 800mA linear plugpacks.. 
Many more available, email him via the group email.

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David Bourke talked about Go-Electronics, and some of his (destructive) 
adventures while at work, late on Fridays. Fun videos.

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Volker demonstrated a selection of LCD displays, and associated 
libraries. He also demonstrated his home-made PIR controlled LED light.

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Stuart demonstrated of a two wheeled ‘Parrot Mini-Drone’, which he won 
at the Canterbury Tech conference.