[chbot] Robotics Group meeting, 5 Idris Rd, 630pm, Mon 18 Aug 2025 report

[Mark Atherton]

Hello everyone,

Good turnout with 32 attendees, and lots of huddles-of tech-talk. $47 + 
change (in gold, and flat-money) collected and transferred into the 
robotics loose-change jar (for later banking).

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, Christchurch 
Amateur Radio Club, NZART Branch 05.

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.

With thanks on behalf of the group,

Mark Atherton

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Coming up next month, Roger Corbett with the art of EME – bouncing radio 
signals off the moon, and back.

Mark talked about a semi-discrete optical interface found on an old 
fibre-optic terminal. The unit has a laser diode on-axis with the fibre, 
while the detector assembly is mounted at 90 degrees, presumably with a 
tiny dichroic prism inside to separate the light by wavelength. Body of 
whole unit is 6 x 6 x 11mm.

ChatGPT 5 was put through its paces by uploading complete datasheets for 
two obscure signal processor ICs used in a CD player, along with a 20MB 
capture of Q channel and control channel data. The AI successfully 
decoder Table of Contents for the CD in the player, and has managed a 
credible description for each of the machine states. This is a huge leap 
when this was attempted using ChatGPT 3o.

William talked about some of his 3D printing adventures.

Darren talked about AI terminology, hallucinations, and what actions 
some businesses are taking to manage the process.

Andrew Dean gave us an update on his latest escape-room technology. 
Also, a very interesting discussion about how the new-world is 
unraveling for his son as he moves into early adulthood.

Ross talked about the fabrication of a 3D puzzle constructed entirely 
from 3mm laser-cut MDF.

Michael gave us an update on his 'DIY mobile phone'

Graham Talked about drilling 6mm 316 SS sheet.

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Interesting videos:

Homemade diesel lawnmower youtube.com/watch?v=wDU-X484St0

Why learn to code failed youtube.com/watch?v=bThPluSzlDU

Agriculture: Combine Harvester & Chieftain Tank 
youtube.com/watch?v=m1tTeRhZCt0

Floppy Disk from Scratch youtube.com/watch?v=TBiFGhnXsh8