[chbot] Robotics Group meeting, Monday 21 Jan 2019, 1830, 5 Idris Road

[Mark Atherton]

Hello everyone,

First meeting of 2019. HNY, and all the best.

Enthusiastic turnout with 25 attendees, and lots of huddles-of 
tech-talk. $31 + change (in gold, and flat-money) collected and 
transferred into the robotics loose-change jar (for later banking).

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.

Guests included David Eccles from linux-conf, and Graham Christie who 
professionally fabricated many of the Science Alive exhibits over the years.

With thanks on behalf of the group,

Mark Atherton

============

William displayed the latest build of his home-made 8 bit machine. Now 
built on PCBs, (including a back-plane), and installed in a metal enclosure.

David Eccles is attending linux-conf as a speaker. He was kind enough to 
give us a sneak preview of his Thursday morning talk about DIY DMA 
sequencing.

David Burke was recently given an anonymous looking power supply unit. 
Upon closer inspection, it appears to be an upgrade for a Lime Scooter 
allowing independent operation(?).

Darren demonstrated a Tamagotchi (early 2000s virtual pet) life support 
system. Implementation used open-CV image recognition to identify 
required action (clean up mess, feed, pet etc).

Robin Gilks kindly brought a box of LCDs from his employer (Delta 
Strike) with donations going to our host club.

Trevor brought in several of dead uSD cards to test on a local Linux 
machine. He talked a little about his experiences.