Feb 23, 2002 - meeting ran from 10am until 12noon officers present: Frank Borowiec Richard Bodor Clint Bridges Paul Burrell Bob Baxter attendees: 23 Intro Frank made introductions. This is our first meeting held at SciTrek and we want to thank the management and staff of SciTrek for making this space available. The March meeting will also be held at SciTrek, and we want all members to try and make it to these meetings. Our April meeting will be held at Automation Direct - a local manufacturer or automation devices. Frank and Richard toured their facilities and they are an excellent company with great opportunity for our club. More details about Automation Direct will be given at the March meeting. Club Business: Rally update - Richard reported that this year's Robot Rally was an unqualified success. The rally could not have been a success without the great support of the members, our sponsors : NetPlanner Systems donated prizes and materials as well as financial support; AVHQ donated all the video and sound equipment; SciTrek, of course, for hosting the Rally, and Prime Computers and Radio Shack for helping the club so much in preparation for the rally. Also the Robot Rally Committee deserves a round of applause for their efforts in making this the best Rally ever. We will have a meeting to "debrief" on the rally so that we can have an even better one next year. If the members have any feedback concerning the Rally, please give this to Frank or Richard so that we can include it with our summary of the rally. Frank and Richard handed out award certificates. Still to be delivered - certificates for Dale and Keith (we ran out of paper - sorry) Treasurer's Report: We do not have a complete tally from the membership drive during the Rally, nor are we exactly sure on the entry fee total, but we will have that as soon as Clint can get the receipt book from John Marting. Other Club Business: Ron Drew is at this meeting - he is from automation direct. This is a new meeting place up 400 that will be switched off from Scitrek. Don Brown and Keith Rowell discussed the SciTrek Mars Rover exhibit. Keith brought in the mock-up of the tethered robot and Don and Keith answered questions about the exhibit. New Attendees: John Moon- found us on the net, Richard Reese - Michael Reese - found us on the internet, John Beach, Harrison Beach, Joseph and Steven, Ron Drew. Many of these new attendees came to the Robot Rally and are checking out the club. Harrison was one of the winners of the Open Competition. Video: Good Day Atlanta coverage pre-rally - Brett Martin and the road warrior covers the robot rally. News coverage from channel 5 and 11 about the Rally. Around the Room: Sean Hussey brought in his 2-speed transmission bot. he answered questions from the audience. also brought in Robor's Bane Royce Pipkins brought in his prize - cyclone kit. He also brought in some parts for his new robot Secundo - for sumo. He also brought in UNO for the sumo competition Daniel Shaeffer - CMU cam - does some sophisticated image processing. See Seattle robotics.com The attendees considered some robot contest ideas. We also took a show of hands for the ideas to see which deserved further investigation. The show of hands total is next to the idea below: "Hurdle" contest - 15 Micro-mouse maze contest - 9 "Can-can" Navigation, object recognition - 17 Larger Sumo - 11 Robot Pong - 5 "Battle" bots / Laser tag? - 12 Hack a kit/toy - 7 Robot Contest - Sumo Uno, Robor's Bane and Delta Force competed. Uno beat robor's bane. Delta Force beat Uno. Next meeting is march 30th - to be held here at SciTrek. After the meeting, several members used the room to discuss the SciTrek Mars Rover project and some other members went to the Intel Clubhouse to work on the SIG - Lego Users Group. SciTrek has some Lego Mindstorm kits and we have volunteered to help show them how to use the equipment. The Hussey's among others joined in and I am sure gave a great introduction. We will try to have the SIG after the March meeting as well.