Monthly Meeting Recap – 8/12/12
August 13, 2012 at 7:05 pm | Monthly Meeting Recaps | No comment
2012 RoboMagellan Update
Wheel-E V2.1 competed at the 2012 Chibots SRS RoboMagellan Competition on August 4th and won 2nd place! Several updates were made since the 2011 year including replacing the Mini ITX computer with a Dell Netbook, replacing the GPS and Compass with an ArduPilot board, and upgrading from Nimh batteries to 4S LiPoly packs. A huge thanks again to SolidWorks and MaxBotix Ultrasonic Rangefinders for their continued support of this project! While Wheel-E was able to successfully complete the course once, our other 2 runs did not go as well due to compass accuracy problems and the lack of functional object detection. We’ll return next year with these problems hopefully remedied.
Recorded GPS track for Wheel-E’s 2nd place run at 2012 Chibots SRS RoboMagellan Competition
Wheel-E 2.1 Components:
- Dell Inspiron Mini 1012 netbook with Intel Atom N450 CPU and 1 GB RAM running 32-bit Windows 7 Professional
- Atmel AVR-based controller for sensor input and motor control
- Two Turnigy 4-cell 25C 14.8 V 5000 mAh Li-Po batteries in parallel for 10 AH total capacity
- Parallax HB-25 electronic speed controllers (2)
- ML-3506 Planetary Gearmotors (2)
- CUI encoders (2)
- Suspension from a Traxxas T-Maxx RC truck in differential drive configuration
- Pro-Line Road Rage Tires with Traxxas Dished Hubs (4)
- Chassis designed using SolidWorks 3D CAD design software
- Custom machined polycarbonate parts fabricated using a Probotix Comet CNC router
- Custom aluminum and plastic parts fabricated using Sherline CNC lathe and milling machine and a MakerBot Replicator 3D printer
- MicroRAX aluminum extrusions for chassis lid and netbook mount
- ArduPilot Mega 2.0 for GPS and compass
- MaxBotix ultrasonic rangefinders for obstacle detection (4)
- Cone detection using a Logitech C310 HD webcam on a Lynxmotion pan-and-tilt assembly
- Programmed using Microsoft Visual Basic 2008 Express and RoboRealm
- Belkin Wi-Fi for sending telemetry to base station laptop
- Spektrum 2.4 GHz RC transmitter and receiver for safety stop switch
August 4, 2012 at 8:40 am | Projects | 1 comment
Monthly Meeting Recap – 7/8/12
July 8, 2012 at 6:24 am | Monthly Meeting Recaps | No comment
Monthly Meeting Recap – 6/10/12
June 10, 2012 at 5:40 pm | Monthly Meeting Recaps | No comment
Monthly Meeting Recap – 5/13/12
May 13, 2012 at 9:35 pm | Monthly Meeting Recaps | No comment
New Monthly Meeting Location – Lakeview Library
Starting on May 13th all monthly club meetings will now take place at the Peoria Public Library Lakeview Branch instead of the North Branch location.
1137 W. Lake Ave.
Peoria, IL 61614
May 9, 2012 at 9:32 am | Announcements | 1 comment
2012 RoboGames
The 2012 RoboGames competition took place from April 20th to the 23rd at San Mateo, California. This event was attended by CIRC President Dan Toborowski and Vice President Curt Boirum. Curt competed in the event with his 3lb Beetleweight and 120lb Middleweight combat robots.
April 26, 2012 at 6:11 am | Uncategorized | No comment
Monthly Meeting Recap – 4/15/12
April 15, 2012 at 3:49 pm | Monthly Meeting Recaps | No comment
Monthly Meeting Recap – 3/11/12
March 11, 2012 at 9:37 pm | Monthly Meeting Recaps | No comment
2012 Lakeview Museum National Engineers Week Event – 2/19/12
The Lakeview Museum hosted their National Engineers Day event on February 19th. This event falls on National Engineers Week and attracts several local engineering organizations and companies. The goal is to get kids excited about engineering and science and CIRC was on hand to demonstrate some exciting robots including various robotic displays, the Marble Maze interactive game, and the “U-Drive-Em” combat robots. We had some trouble attracting visitors to our slightly out-of-the-way room but those who stopped by were very interested in our club and expressed great interest in our upcoming Bot Brawl event.
All of the organizations that participated in this event including CIRC also received a proclamation from the Mayor of Peoria! The proclamations were awarded at the February 14th city council meeting. You can watch video of the meeting here. The National Engineering Week proclamation is about 10 minutes in.
A huge thanks to Len Shelton, Mike Dvorsky, and Bruce Stott for helping with the CIRC display. We look forward to participating in this event again next year at the new Riverfront Museum!
February 19, 2012 at 8:05 pm | Community | 2 comments
