[chbot] Meeting notes, CHCH Robotics Group, 21 Mar 2016

[Mark Atherton]

Hello everyone,

Interesting meeting, with 20 people attending.

$28 collected and transferred to BR05 account, with balance in the 
donation box.

Total donations to BR05 from the Robotics Club is now $219.10, as follows:

Date 	Collected 	Attendees
21-Mar-16 	$28.00 	20
15-Feb-16 	$72.00 	24
18-Jan-16 	$25.00 	22
21-Dec-15 	$26.10 	17
16-Nov-15 	$18.00 	15
19-Oct-15 	$20.00 	20
21-Sep-15 	$30.00 	20

	$219.10 	


With thanks on behalf of the group,
Mark Atherton

PS The heat pump was marvelous !

===========

Kaori Kobashi briefly dropped in with her two boys, Yamato (age 9), and 
Hayato (age 6). She was interested to know how to introduce her children 
to robotics (and technology in general).

===========

Quite a bit of discussion about the acquisition of a 3D printer on 
long-term loan from FabLab (many thanks guys !).

Briefly, the preferred route to go with the printer is to get a locked 
cabinet, to keep it securely away from inquisitive fingers, and to run 
some 3D printing specific evenings. These will be open to the Robotics 
Group, and BR05 radio club. One concern was about insurance (fire, 
theft). It might be possible to get this $2k item added to BR05 
insurance. Need to talk with the BR05 committee.

In terms of running 3D printing evenings, a 3D printer expert would need 
to be present to guide setup etc. Luke Prattley has offered to step in 
to initially help with this. Also needed is a BR05 keyholder - Mike 
Barnes, Andy Gardner and myself are obvious choices, but more discussion 
is needed.

Finally, Andrew has offered to donate a contemporary PC - this will be 
used exclusivity for 3D printing related work.

Need to figure out space etc. for all of this equipment, need to consult 
with Rory et. al. at BR05 how to proceed.

===========

A request was recently made to change the flavour of Linux on the end PC 
from Ubuntu to Peppermint. The Robotics group are a majority user of 
this PC/OS. The group was asked about this change, the group voted 0 for 
and 5 against changing the OS from Ubuntu. Unless BR05 have any 
objections, the end PC will stay using Ubuntu.

Like Pepermint, Ubuntu is based on Debian, so all of the open source Ham 
Radio related applications can loaded onto Ubuntu as things are 
currently set up. An alternate Display Manager can also be loaded if the 
apparently unfriendly Gnome (classic) is a barrier against progress.

Finally, it was emphasized, that the four PCs at BR05 are for 
productivity and use, not as toys to be tinkered with. If there is a 
need for a PC which can be used to experiment with Operating systems, 
then we should get a stand alone unit just for that purpose.

===========

Geoffrey(?)  Irons next gave an interesting account of his experience 
using micro-Python running on a $2 ESP-8266 platform. This is will be 
used as part of the University run 'wacky races', disposable, computer 
controlled car project. Sorry about guessing at your first name, it has 
been a long evening :)

===========

Ivo brought a 4k x 12bit core-store memory block. Most interesting how 
large, expensive and slow this old technology was.

===========

There was a also a quick demo of a voice recognition system. 
Communications was initiated by saying 'Arduino' ! Interesting piece of 
hardware. Sorry, i have forgotten the name of the presenter.





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