February 9, 2013
Robotics Society of Southern CA Meeting 2-9-13
CSULB Engineering department building, 302
Minutes : Doug
Class : ROS Launch Files, by Doug
Doug gave a class on ROS Launch files. It focused on the advantages of launch files, syntax, includes, parameters, arguments, and case type statements. You can find links as well as the code and presentation at http://dougsbots.blogspot.com/2013/02/ros-launch-file-talk.html
Business Meeting
Announcements
Walter reminded everyone that there was a Leaf SIG Meeting today, and that all are free to attend. These will be held an hour before our normal meeting at 10:00 am.
John mentioned that the Southern California Linux Expo (SCALE) will be happening at the LAX Hilton in two weeks. See http://www.socallinuxexpo.org/scale11x for more details.
Ron reported on current treasury funds on registration of the group.
Upcoming Classes (11:00 – 12:00)
| Month | Class | Presenter |
| March 9 | Creating Custom Hardware for Arduino (SPI) | Bill |
| April 13 | Animatronics | Tim |
| May 11 | PID Motor Control | Alex |
Upcoming Competitions:
March 2013 - Pick up a can contest (rules here)
April 2013 - (Autonomous) Rock Crawler contest
May 2013 - (maybe) Walking contest
June 2013 - Hallway Contest
Fire Fighting Contest
Wow, what a great turnout! Check it out here!
Show and Tell
Paul
Paul showed part of a walking robot kit that he purchased on eBay. He said that for $80 - $90 he got a complete bracket kit, without servos, and that the quality of the parts is very good. I found the similar or same items by searching "walking robot servo bracket" on eBay, with most listings by the seller "gadgetinfinite" or "goodlucksell".
Hunter
Showed how you can export stuff that was built inside of the Minecraft game into an STL file. They export the information with a script, which there is more information about at http://www.minecraftprint.com/. This could be used as input for a 3D printer, for example.
Ron
Ron asked if anyone had experience converting analog video to digital. Martin mentioned he had used a device called EasyCap that can output an AVI file format.
Martin
Martin took us all outside for a demonstration of the robot that he and his students are working on for the RoboGames Magellan contest. It uses a Zotac ZBox Nano, several microcontrollers, GPS, a webcam with RoboRealm, and ultrasonic sensors to find a number of orange hazard cones... OUTside. Check out the video, it's very cool.