Monthly Meeting Recap – 11/10/13
Robot Show & Tell:
- Joshua Whitley demonstrated recent updates he’s made to the ROS node responsible for waypoint navigation on our club’s Robomagellan robot. One significant update was a GUI interface for adding, re-ordering, and editing GPS waypoints.
- Peter Campbell demonstrated a special GUI interface plugin which allows testing of the “groundspeed” node. The groundspeed node is responsible for comparing “desired groundspeed” with actual groundspeed calculated from encoder inputs and outputting a “groundspeed error” result. Peter’s GUI interface allows the user to manually select values for the parameters including a constantly incrementing encoder value so that the node can be tested and any potential bugs can hopefully be found before actual on-robot testing.
- Mike Dvorsky brought the latest copy of Robot Builders Sourcebook which is now available for check out from the club library.
- Dan Toborowski brought a few 3D printed parts be made including a custom GoPro camera enclosure designed to protect the camera when mounted on a quadcopter and a mounting base for carbon fiber tubes which will be used for sensor masts on the new Wheel-E version 3.0. Dan uses an Afinia H-series printer. Dan also showed a video of a high-speed robotic hand which wins at Rock-Paper-Scissors 100% of the time by quickly identifying his opponent’s choice right before selecting its own choice. Dan also provided an update on Scout, the Transatlantic Autonomous Robot which stopped reporting a few weeks back but seems to be returning to its original course. At this time it’s unclear if the robot has regained some navigation functionality or if it’s drifting and by coincidence has been nearing it’s intended route. You can follow it’s progress here.
Announcements:
- Next monthly meeting is December 8th.
- ServoCity has graciously provided CIRC with a 10% discount code valid until December 1st. ServoCity offers a huge line of servos, servo controllers, small scale mechanical components, and modular robot building parts. To use the coupon, enter CIRC-10 during checkout.
Upcoming Events:
- Peoria-Area FLL Practice Scrimmages
- St Mark’s School – November 2nd
- Peoria Christian High School – November 16th
- Central Illinois FLL Qualifier Tournaments
- Peoria Christian High School – December 7th
- Bradley University – December 14th
Officer Elections:
- Officer elections for 2014 took place today. Congrats to everyone on being elected!
- President: Dan Toborowski (incumbent)
- Vice President: Brian Oleson
- Treasurer: Peter Campbell (incumbent)
- Secretary: Club officers voted to abolish role, responsibilities are currently covered by other officer positions
- Webmaster: Joshua Whitley (incumbent)
- Librarian: Mike Dvorsky (incumbent)
Community Event Opportunities:
- 2013 FIRST LEGO League competition
- Volunteer judges still needed, sign up at flltournament.com or contact dan.toborowski@gmail.com if interested
Club Business:
- Website Updates
- We’d like to add more content to website. If anyone would like to put together a “getting started” guide, product review, project summary, or any other content please send to webmaster for posting.
- RoboMagellan
- The development team has continued to make progress on Wheel-E 3.0 but the robot was not ready to attend the November 9th ChiBots RoboMagellan competition. We will keep moving forward and try again for the first 2014 competition.
- 2014 Bot Brawl
- Saturday, April 5th, Redbird Arena
- Bot Brawl will start at 10AM and conclude at 4PM. Main Family Science Day Event will start at 11AM (hour after start of Bot Brawl) and also conclude at 4PM.
- Registration will open through the BuildersDatabase soon
- Robot events:
- 1lb Combat
- 3lb Combat
- Line Following
- Line Maze
- Mini (500g) Sumo
- 3kg Sumo
- Checkers on a Sumo Ring
- Today we went through the Bot Brawl roles spreadsheet which defines individual responsibilities for the day of the event as well as pre-competition preparations.
November 10, 2013 at 7:28 pm | Monthly Meeting Recaps | No comment
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