[chbot] Robotics Group meeting notes : Monday 18 June 2018, 630pm, 5 Idris Road

[Mark Atherton]

Hello everyone,

Enthusiastic turnout with 24 attendees, and lots of huddles-of 
tech-talk. $68 + change (in gold, and flat-money) collected and 
transferred into the robotics loose-change jar (for later banking). This 
amount included sale of a donated item.

Quick reminder: equipment donations are welcome for the trading table, 
but no CRT based product, printers, toner or items that are likely to be 
a disposal burden. All sales from the trading table should go into the 
brown box on the wall, and are directly for the benefit of our host 
club, NZART Branch 05.

With thanks on behalf of the group,

Mark Atherton

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One of the participants was a real, talking Lego robot. He was brought 
along by his creators, Andrew, and Avery. Andrew spent some considerable 
time talking about his paid visit (by Lego) to demonstrate his creation 
to the Lego headquarter staff in Europe. This was fascinating.

Synco talked about his experience getting $2 PCBs (for 10) manufactured 
– they were surprisingly high quality. He splurged on another $18, for 
rush shipment. This is quite an amazing deal from JLCPCB.

Charles brought along more 3D print experiments, including a prototype 
plastic shredder based on a low cost wood-planer. The plan is to shred, 
melt and compress milk bottle plastic, then form a machinable material. 
Early attempts at turning this material were ‘dreamlike’.

William gave us an update on his hand-crafted eight bit machine. One of 
the next steps is to add a video output; he is looking for some large 
FLASH memory devices as part of this upgrade.

Peter Harris talked about Tesla Power Wall experience. Some while ago he 
had several long conversations with their sales team (in OZ) who 
convinced him that their power storage product could properly store and 
synthesise 3 phase power. Having placed a sizable deposit, the 
installation man explained that all of the products were only single 
phase. Peter received a full refund in due course.

Corey talked about the Youtube New Zeroland channel, and some of the 
adventures one of his friends was having while owning an electric 
motorbike. Main issues was finding appropriate re-charge locations.

Several times during the evening the YouTube channel ‘Strangeparts’ was 
mentioned; it is managed by the person who made his own smartphone ...