July 28, 2001
Officers present:
     Frank Borowiec - President
     Richard Bodor - Co-Vice President
     Clint Bridges - Treasurer
Attendance:
     19 members, 3 new attendees
Treasurer's report: (Treasurer's information is not made public.
Members wanting this information should contact an officer.)
VP Report - Richard asked for volunteers for robot rally committee.
The meetings are scheduled for the first tuesday of each month at a local bar.
RBNO - This month the meeting was using dale's equipment to determine
the traction on wheels. They found that slot car race tires had the best
traction. Also "pinch rollers" are good wheels with excellent traction.
Clint explained how these are used in industry. Dale explained that using
small slot car wheels effects the speed, since RPMs is an important factor.
Next RBNO is posted on the web site. Topic for the next one is not yet decided.

new attendees:
     Royce Pipkins - with Johnson Controls, has seen battle bots,
                     found us on a web search.

     Steve Carter - Chris's father
     Wendy Frank - Nicholas's wife.

Video - "Gizmo" from the Learning Channel

Show and tell
     * Richard brought in a box of hard drives for give away
     * Clint showed a Lego tachometer ($22) - these are found at the
       north GA premium outlet. There is a lego store in there.
     * Clint and Chris showed the completed leg assembly for their
       Large hexapod walker - (picture made)
     * Dale brought a small servo - 7 oz/inches of torque, $25 CS10BB, 1.9oz.
     * Dale is also re-working Robor -he added a tilt sensor for escape mode.
     * Noah brought in a Lego Mindstorms obstacle avoidance experiment.

Presentation
     Nicholas Frank presents OOPic (picture made)
          * Savage is the manufacturer - www.oopic.com is web site.
          * Costs $50 or less for the chip on a board - includes RTC and voltage regulator.
          * Has a bunch of classes - for each device
          * Can program using basic, java or c
          * The code is very compact for his mini-sumo program.
          * Downsides are RAM capacity and the programming language is fairly limited.

Mini-Sumo Contest
     The contestants were:
     Robor - Dale Heatherington added a new tilt sensor and some "escape mode"
     behavior. He was still able to do this in 495 grams

     Frankenstein - Nicholas Frank built this using the OOPic programming
     that he demonstrated for the presentation this week. The robot weighed
     in at 502 grams, slightly over the limit.

     Default - Galen Hussey returned with his robot. It had trouble with
     the wood block qualification. He took a break and re-qualified after the
     first competition

Robor vs. Frankenstein: Dale won all three heats. Frankenstein and Robor then
had a few exhibition matches as Nicholas tweaked his starting position a
bit.

Robor vs. Default: Dale won 2 of the three heats, then the two combatants had
a third heat and it was a tie. The final heat had Default as the winner.

Default vs. Frankenstein. Default won the first heat, then Frankenstein won
the second. The final match was long and a great struggle, but Default
won.