[chbot] Meeting Summary 18 October

[Andrew Errington]

Hi all,

I realise that I didn't send out a meeting summary for the last meeting, 
for which I apologise.  Suffice it to say it was a splendid evening, and 
for those who missed it, well, too bad.

The meeting on the 18th was also most excellent.  Thank you to those who 
turned up, and especially those who brought along interesting things.  I 
think we only had two working robots on the night, but there were quite a 
number of exciting works-in-progress.

I'll try and summarise what happened (after we managed to get the Seminar 
Room door open).  If I miss anything, please would someone send a follow-up 
message to fill in the gaps.  (I also apologise if I get people's names 
wrong, as I am still struggling to put names to faces).

So, there were about 15 people present, which is a good turnout.  Michael 
Pearce brought his R2-bot, which to many people present looked like a 
baby-milk tin with a bowl on top, but which in actual fact was a highly 
advanced AI platform with sophisticated cybernetic systems.  This is 
intended to be part of an animated display, and the robot tilts back and 
forth, turns its head, makes a noise and lights up.  I think after a while 
it will have motors added and become an autonomous robot platform.

Peter brought in a big box of junk- again, those who missed the meeting 
missed an excellent opportunity to pick up some Tamiya motors, gearboxes, 
wheels and tracks, Meccano and random parts that were surplus to 
requirements.  Thanks for that.  He also talked about the AVRcam that he 
has added to his 'bot to detect the hot-pink fluorescent painted wooden 
block.  The camera was not hooked up at the time, but the robot used its 
original sensors and tracked down the wooden block with style.

Steven brought in some more wooden blocks (in case anyone needs to take one 
for calibration or testing) and some *tiny* motors for building tiny robots.

Carl showed his floor robot with car window motors.  This has been fitted 
with Sharp IR range sensors from Acroname which worked very well.  The 
robot moved quietly and deliberately around the floor avoiding most things. 
 Carl also demonstrated his USB oscilloscope kit, which is a device like a 
large oscilloscope probe that plugs into a PC USB port and shows voltage 
waveforms on the PC's screen.

Finally, Richard brought in his demo micromouse maze and micromouse 
prototype chassis.  For those who don't know, Micromouse is a robotics 
competition popular worldwide in which autonomous robot devices explore and 
solve a maze (built on a 16 by 16 cell grid).  The challenge is to firstly 
explore the maze efficiently and find its centre, and secondly to follow 
the path from the start point to the centre as fast as possible.  Richard's 
(current) micromouse was not working, consisting, as it did, of a PCB with 
a pair of motors, a microcontroller and little else attached.  Richard has 
volunteered to do a short presentation about micromouse competitions next 
time, and has already posted some other information to the list.

Again, sorry if I have missed something, or got your name wrong.  Please 
send corrections and additions to the list.

Next meeting is the third week of December.  I, too, hope to have something 
going by then.

Regards,

Andrew