[chbot] Robotics Group meeting, Monday 21 Sept 2020, 630pm, 5 Idris Road

[Mark Atherton]

Hello everyone,

Good turnout with 20 attendees, and lots of huddles-of tech-talk. $24 + 
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.

With thanks on behalf of the group,

Mark Atherton

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

Mark Talked about the problems associated with aligning work for 
laser-cutting die-cast plastic enclosures with a small draft angle. He 
also touched on stabilising the very low cost MP2307 buck regulator 
board as well as talking through his experience getting PCB fabrication 
and first attempt at board assembly done by JLCpcb in China.

William brought in his LED blink-a-tron, a multi-LED display unit that 
had been removed from an old gaming machine (?) at some point. Now ably 
controlled by an Arduino.

Bevin continued his talk about compiler construction, this month: 
Optimisation. This was a comprehensive insight into possible methods 
used by compilers, and why the resulting binaries aren't quiet what we 
expect. Thank you for the huge effort you have put into these talks Bevin.

Russell talked about his adventures urging a reticent laptop-charger 
into action, as well as all of the effort required to convert a thrown 
out laptop shell into a usable machine. He also went into quite some 
detail about his off-grid energy harvesting system. This is quite and 
impressive project.

Robin introduced the company he works for, along with a description of a 
person he is hoping to hire. Stay tuned for a summary job description on 
this list.