May 12, 2007
These minutes are also available in PDF form.
Class
Steven Gentner completed his presentation on RoboRealm software. He demonstrated techniques of filtering pictures to detect objects by using colors,edge detection etc.
He ended with a demonstration of his software by Bruce Weimer’s robot, Leaf. Also below is a picture of Leaf successfully traveling down the hallway using RoboRealm to identify obstacle free areas of the floor. It went about 50 or more feet down the hall without touching any walls. Using this scheme, it even managed to go through an open door at the end of the hallway. (This hallway demo was done before the meeting started.)
Business meeting
The classroom session for next month (June) will be Martin Mason giving a presentation on PICAXE programming.
Next month will be the find the wall outlet contest. See the mail list files section for rules.
We discussed our attempt to set up the club as a charitable corporation. This had originally been proposed in hopes of getting a $1000 donation which had been offered anonymously. By this time, there is little assurance that the offer is still open; and considering the additional costs and workload to complete the incorporation, as well as maintain it on a yearly basis, we voted to table the matter for the indefinite future.
As a result of our current difficulty in contacting our club treasurer, we decided that all officers of the club should exchange addresses, phone numbers and other contact information.
Contest
A Wall following contest was held. Read all about it here.
Show & Tell
Jeff Dunker showed us his Sega R2D2 which sells for about $119. It is voice activated, has sonars and other sensors. He showed various modes of operation including autonomous mode where it is capable of wandering around while avoiding most obstacles.
Martin Mason discussed some of the issues in building walking robots and some methods he used for his entry in the wall following contest. He also mentioned that this was his first time to use Sharp IR sensors and he discussed his problems in building a charger for Lithium ion batteries. Plans for his charger are available on his website at www.profmason.com.
Jeff Dunker gave another presentation on a “Harvester” module article he found. Apparently, this module can gather stray energy from a variety of sources (e.g. vibration, chemical) and store it up for use at 3.5 to 5 vdc.
In response to popular demand, Steven Gentner did some more demonstration of his RoboRealm software which was the subject of today’s classroom session. He showed how (soon to come) RoboRealm software will be able to stabilize an image. It currently stabilizes just in the x/y axes, but he intends to add rotation in the future.