April 2010 Minutes


BMO April 10:

A young visitor showed up with his small made-from-scratch robot which goes
around in a circle. He said he has a lot of Lego Mindstorms experience, but
wants to build more robots from scratch.

Len brought and demonstrated several industrial devices: capacitive,
inductive and infrared proximity sensors, and load cells. He also brought
some pneumatic/hydraulic cylinders

Regular Meeting April 24:

Dale ran his polybot as a demonstration for the polytahlon bulldozer
contest.

Robot Rally discussion:
Len has a tentative list of rule changes for Polyathlon
The idea of a rope around event arenas was proposed.
Pinckneyville's open house date is not yet set.
A possible date for Robot Rally was proposed for a Saturday in October.
Len suggested dropping the beacon-follower-without-obstacles contest and
keeping only the beacon follower with obstacles.
Cube Quest: possible remote-control, virtual/remote presence, and/or
autonomous modes.

Kirk brought a printout to make a paper cone that goes uphill:
www.paperpino.net

There was a demonstration of
A USB logic analyzer from Salea was demonstrated:
http://www.saleae.com/logic/
$150 from Sparkfun:
http://www.sparkfun.com/commerce/product_info.php?products_id=8938

USBEE was mentioned as a brand of similar, competing products:
http://www.usbee.com/


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