[chbot] Fwd: Robotics Group meeting, 5 Idris Rd, 630pm, Mon 17 Mar 2025 report

[Mark Atherton]

Hello everyone,

Good turnout with 24 attendees, and lots of huddles-of tech-talk. $29 + 
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

---------

Mark talked about the design of a simple DALI interface to drive a 
single-channel LED driver.

Adam found an interesting PCB which was passed around. 3 capacitors are 
placed on an isolated  peninsula, presumably a method to precisely 
locate return currents associated with a local SMPSU.

Graham Christie talked about an upcoming school high-altitude balloon 
project. He was mainly interested in exploring communication and 
location issues. He also touched on a piece of WW2 IFF equipment he 
purchased as well as a WW2 map holder converted for use with a 
paper-white tablet.

Robin Gilks gave us an update on his multi-horse-power tree-shaker project.

Steven Graham talked about his mag-lev toy, a Smart Galaxy Globe.

Michael Glaser talked about a NZ$12 (landed) USB/wireless modem which 
supports a full implementation of Linux. He also brought in some 
balloon-material as well as mentioning some recent concerns over Google 
initiated spyware on Android phones.


Interesting stuff on YouTube:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=CqcW-nJuiO8 Mr Hewes, inductive heating of a 
Chieftain Tank

www.youtube.com/watch?v=VwlPwaOF4No&t=3s Superfast Matt learning to 
drive in the snow