June Meeting Location Moved!!
Our June monthly meeting will be held on June 13 at the Germantown Hills Library. It’s location is 509 Woodland Knolls Rd, Germantown Hills, IL 61548. We are holding the meeting here to mix things up. Meeting time is 5:00 PM to 6:30 PM. The meeting will be held in the meeting room. All people interested in hobby robotics are welcome to attend.
June 5, 2018 at 6:03 pm | Uncategorized | No comment
Monthly Meeting Recap 1/10/2018
Meeting notes from the first meeting of 2018.
- Attendees:
- Peter
- Karl
- Bruce Stott
- Mike
- Manish – New member
- Show & Tell:
- Peter had several items:
- He recommended checking out the LG robot fails at CES 2018: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tQMtbWwbduA
- He received a communication from Jsumo regarding their latest product, the Xmotion robot controller on indiegogo. This is an arduino-compatible controller with integrated high-current H-bridges. Good for sumo and other small robots. https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/xmotion-all-in-one-controller-for-robotics-robot-arduino#/
- He reported that he installed ROS2 on Windows. Basically it works, but is arduous to install and limited compared with ROS for Linux.
- He brought a 3d-printed container that opens only after being manipulated to solve a maze. https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:201097
- He brought a book he recently read called Invent It, Sell It, Bank It! by Lori Greiner from Shark Tank. It reminded him that he prefers product design over sales/marketing/business.
- Karl had made much progress on Wheel-E, which he demonstrated.
- He had the Leddar mounted and communicating over CAN with the Raspberry Pi.
- He had dead reckoning functioning based on encoders and a yaw rate gyro.
- He drove Wheel-E around, showing the Leddar point cloud in Rviz. It could show Wheel-E moving in a fixed frame of reference (based on position from dead reckoning), or show Wheel-E as stationary and the point cloud moving around.
- He demonstrated startup of the ROS system, which involves many steps in a particular order. During the meeting he created a launch file that automated some of the steps.
- Here is a link to videos of the robot driving around and its Leddar output displayed on a laptop.
- Mike showed some 3d-printed filament cleaners/oilers that he printed to use up a couple meters of filament at the end of a spool. The interesting thing about them is that they are a hinged box with clasp that print as a single piece. https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1692395
- Peter had several items:
- Presentation:
- We ended up talking a lot about Wheel-E, so we saved the technical talk till next time.
January 18, 2018 at 9:14 pm | Announcements, Monthly Meeting Recaps | No comment
Monthly Meeting Recap 12/13/17
- Attendees:
- Peter
- Karl
- Bruce Stott
- Mike
- Show & Tell:
- Karl – Showed progress on Wheel-E CAN bus architecture. He has removed the BotBoard and replaced it with an Arduino and CAN shield. He also added a CAN hat to the Raspberry Pi and created a CAN protocol for communication of Wheel-E parameters. The Arduino reads RC pulses, encoder counts, etc., and transmits them over the CAN bus to the RPi. He brought Wheel-E and demonstrated remote control operation using the new CAN architecture.
- Peter – Shared his 3D printed creations. Among them were a double slider crank mechanism, and a “straight pole curved hole” illusion (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gm-lCSPBdp4).
- Bruce – Showed his stripped down Battle Wheels bot to be used as a wedge RC Antweight, though it weighs 15.6 oz now without the wedge. There are opportunities to reduce the weight some, but not much.
- Karl – Showed progress on Wheel-E CAN bus architecture. He has removed the BotBoard and replaced it with an Arduino and CAN shield. He also added a CAN hat to the Raspberry Pi and created a CAN protocol for communication of Wheel-E parameters. The Arduino reads RC pulses, encoder counts, etc., and transmits them over the CAN bus to the RPi. He brought Wheel-E and demonstrated remote control operation using the new CAN architecture.
- Presentation:
-
- Officer Elections.
- President
- Bruce Stott
- Vice President
- Vacant
- Treasurer
- Peter
- Secretary
- Mik
- Webmaster: Website, Slack & Facebook administration
- Bruce Stott
- Librarian
- Mike
- Other? No.
- President
- Officer Elections.
-
December 16, 2017 at 5:56 pm | Monthly Meeting Recaps, Uncategorized | No comment
Bot Brawl 17 Results
Bot Brawl 17 was hosted on August 12, 2017 at the Peoria Civic Center in Peoria, IL. This event was part of Ignite Peoria and the Midwest MakerFest. The Midwest MakerFest is the largest MakerFest in the Midwest, and the Bot Brawl is the largest hobby robotics contest in the Midwest! There were art exhibits, dance performances, maker demonstrations, and maker exhibits going on all day long in addition to the Bot Brawl.
The day was a success with 49 robots going at each other. There were 20 Antweights and 14 Beetleweights competing. A couple of robots had to drop out due to not passing safety inspections. A few Beetleweights could not get ready in time and dropped out at the last moment. The Mini (500g) Sumo event had 10 competitors that produced a few surprises with the upstarts taking on the veterans. The Mega (3 kg) Sumo had only 2 competitors. Two of the pre-registered robots ran into technical difficulties the night before and dropped out. Still, the 2 entrants that were able to compete put on a good show. The Line Following and Line Maze events were held as demonstrations due to a low number of entrants. Checkers on a Sumo Ring had 3 competitors, with the victor upsetting last year’s champion. The RC Combat Rumbles held at the end of the day were a great roar of fun. The Antweight victor was chosen by audience applause since there were at least 6 bots still moving at the end of 4:00 minutes. The Beetleweight victor was a surprise and left no doubt as to who was in charge of that rumble!
Live streaming videos are available at https://www.youtube.com/user/circrobotics
Here is a table of the final results.
| Bot Brawl 2017 Final Results | ||
| 500 g Mini Sumo | ||
| Place | Robot | Team |
| 1 | Blooman | dbots |
| 2 | Newman | dbots |
| 3 | Orthos | dbots |
| 4 | ExSpurt | Brooksbots |
| 5 | GIZMO-UNI | TeamUNI |
| 5 | Zoom-O | CoolWHip |
| 7 | LI’L DEVIL | TeamUNI |
| 7 | Zuman | dbots |
| 9 | KING ARDY | TeamUNI |
| 9 | UNICORN | TeamUNI |
| 3kg Mega Sumo | ||
| Place | Robot | Team |
| 1 | Executioner | Brooksbots |
| 2 | Turf | Andrew & Todd |
| Antweight | ||
| Place | Robot | Team |
| 1 | Ignatz | VBT Robotics |
| 2 | The Snip | Rad Robotics |
| 3 | Pushy Wushy | Rad Robotics |
| 4 | Taster | Bleach Boys |
| 5 | Ignition | Haven |
| 5 | Betula | Anthracnose |
| 7 | The Krave Monsters | Hurd Robotics |
| 7 | This is a Test | TML Productions |
| 9 | Spinook | CoolWHip |
| 9 | 10 Days Til Destruction | Warwick Robotics STL |
| 9 | Ygritte | The Northerners |
| 9 | Some Putty’s In Trouble | Warwick Robotics STL |
| 13 | Holy Joe | Scrappy Angels |
| 13 | Peter Pan | Hurd Robotics |
| 13 | Circular Reference | Arch Reactor STL |
| 13 | Stretcher | Bleach Boys |
| 17 | Wombatchewed | Loos Cannon |
| 17 | Sky Shark | Black Lightning Robotics |
| 17 | Calamity Jazz Hands | Rampage Productions |
| 17 | Odium | Widows Peak |
| Beetleweight | ||
| Place | Robot | Team |
| 1 | k-too | HtG Robotics |
| 2 | Phantom II | Black Lightning Robotics |
| 3 | Catalpa | Anthracnose |
| 4 | Boomzilla | Rampage Productions |
| 5 | Cyanide | VBT Robotics |
| 5 | King Googly | Hurd Robotics |
| 7 | TripOut | Team Cerberus |
| 7 | From the Top of Skyscrapers | Warwick Robotics STL |
| 9 | Death from Above | Endgame |
| 9 | Al6bb1 | Al6kar |
| 9 | Dandelion | Rampage Productions |
| 9 | Icky Mouse | Widows Peak |
| 13 | Elepha-Flip | Dan The Robot Man |
| 13 | Honorable Mention | HtG Robotics |
| Checkers on a Sumo Ring | ||
| Place | Robot | Team |
| 1 | Coaster | Central Illinois Robotics Club |
| 2 | Triple Jump | Team tOBOR Combat Robotics |
| 3 | King Me | dbots |
| Antweight Rumble | ||
| Place | Robot | Team |
| 1 | Spinook | CoolWHip |
| Beetleweight Rumble | ||
| Place | Robot | Team |
| 1 | Icky Mouse | Widows Peak |
Many thanks to our sponsors for 2017!! Without them, our prize selection would not have been possible. With all the great prizes we were able to offer, our victors had a hard time selecting which prizes to take home.
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August 9, 2017 at 4:10 pm | Brawls & Boogaloos, Uncategorized | No comment
Rules Finalized for Bot Brawl 17
Rules for Bot Brawl 17 have been finalized. The changes made were minor. Our goals was to loosen up some areas and get rid of ambiguities in other areas. Rules can be found on the “Bot Brawls” page. Just click on the event you are interested in.
June 21, 2017 at 10:10 pm | Uncategorized | No comment
Bot Brawl 17 Antweight and Beetleweight Categories All Full
For Bot Brawl 17 both the Antweight and Beetleweight categories for our RC competition are full! We limited these events to 20 entrants each. This is done so that we can get all events completed in a timely fashion. At this time there are no plans to expand the number of entrants. If you would like to get on a wait list, please email Bruce Stott at president@circpeoria.org. I will put names on a list in case people cancel or we somehow find more room to allow more entrants. I will need the robot name, weight class, and valid email address. If a slot opens up, I will contact people in order to see if they are still interested and able to compete.
There is still room in the sumo and line events. We suggest registering early.
For those that did register already. If for some reason you know that you will not be able to make our Bot Brawl 17, please cancel your registration so that we can allow someone else to compete. Thank you!
April 13, 2017 at 8:26 pm | Uncategorized | No comment
Bot Brawl 17 will be August 12, 2017
The date is set for Bot Brawl 17!! It will be on August 12, 2017 at the Peoria Civic Center as part of the Midwest MakerFest as part of Ignite Peoria. The events we plan on having are the 1 lb (Ant) & 3 lb (Beetle) RC Combat, the 500g (Mini) & 3 kg (Mega) Sumo, the Line Follow & Maze, and Checkers on a Sumo Ring. The exact times for each event still need to be determined. We may add or remove some events. If you would like a particular event that is not listed and you would think it good to add, email the club at president@circpeoria.org. If we don’t get enough people pre-registered for an event, we will not hold that event. So, please register early at buildersdb.com. Rules for each event can be found on our Bot Brawls page. We look forward to seeing you there!!
March 24, 2017 at 12:20 pm | Uncategorized | No comment
Meeting Location Is Changing!
The club meeting location will be moving from AutonomouStuff to River City Labs for the foreseeable future starting for the March 2017 general meeting! This will give CIRC and RCL a chance to collaborate more easily. Meetings will stay on Wednesdays. The monthly general club meetings will continue to be the second Tuesday of the month and start at 5:00 PM. The Wheel-E build meetings will continue to be scheduled as time and interest abounds.
Many thanks to AutonomouStuff for hosting the meetings for so long!!! It’s very much appreciated!
Address: River City Labs, 1213 SW Adams St, Downtown Peoria, IL 61602
Parking is along the street. The meeting will be on the second floor.
March 6, 2017 at 5:55 pm | Uncategorized | No comment
12th Annual UNI Mini-Sumo Smackdown Competition
The organizers of the UNI MiniSumo Smackdown invite you to compete in their mini sumo competition to be held on Friday, April 21, 2017 from 9:00 AM to 11:00 AM at the University of Northern Iowa. The unique nature of this contest is that competitors can mail their robot entrants to the organizers and they will assign someone to operate the robot as per the owner’s instructions. Pretty cool, you don’t have to even be there, which is nice on the budget. The only downside is that the owner does not get to see their robot cream the competition. Another upside is that the owner does not get to see their robot get creamed by the competition. I guess it depends on how you look at it. ?
Here is a link to the site with the announcement.
February 21, 2017 at 1:11 pm | Announcements, Competitions | No comment
Josh Jacob’s Meccatana Project – G15B
Josh is working on a humanoid type of robot. He has a lot going into this creation of his. He is merging Meccano’s Meccanoid G15 Robot with Microsoft’s Cortana AI and Intel RealSense. Here is a link his web page for this project.
February 21, 2017 at 11:59 am | Announcements, Projects | No comment
