October 12, 2013
Robotics Society of Southern CA Meeting 10-13-2013
CSULB Engineering department building, 302
Minutes : Doug
Class : Fedora Electronics Lab
Les gave a presentation on the capabilities of Fedora Electronics Lab, which is a spin (or special distribution) of Fedora Linux that comes with many open source electronics design tools pre-installed. He talked about the function of several tools available in the spin :
gEDA - PCB design, BOM generation, view gerbers, etc.
gschem - schematic capture
gnetlist - describes the schematic in terms of network connections, rather than physical layout
PCB - PCB layout tool
ngspice - an analog circuit simulation tool. It does not do physical modeling. so RF designs need further work with design rules or physical modeling.
sdcc - "the small device C compiler"
JAAA - jack audio analyzer. Could be used for frequency analysis from an IMU or listening to a motor to see how smoothly it is running
Alliance - IC design
Business Meeting
Announcements
The Riverside Robotics Expo will be on Nov 2nd. This is one of the largest robotics events in Southern California! Learn more at http://www.meetup.com/The-Riverside-Robotics-Society/events/131114172/
There will be a 16oz BattleBots contest at the Expo. Follow RFL rules http://botleague.info/doc/RFLTechRegs-2010-final.pdf. Here's a video from the RCX Expo in Long Beach : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i5WRviGu5og
ServoCity sent us coupon codes for a 10% off discount, and also gave us several parts as competition prizes. Thank you ServoCity for your interest and support!
Bob Barbosa was back, and announced that there are grants in the amount of $50,000 available for high school teachers that will integrate humanoid robots into the classroom. He is also looking for members experienced in C++ to discuss how to integrate robotics into the curriculum. For more information on the grants, see the website : http://kidstalkradiola.com/
The Long Beach Maker Society is holding a "Build your own 3D printer" session on the Cal State Long Beach campus. Registration is already closed for this fall, but they typically offer an 8-week session each semester, held on Saturdays. They will help you build a RepRap, for registration of ~$600. For more details see their website.
Upcoming Classes (11:00 – 12:00)
November - PIZZA PARTY, and Sergei will talk about Trackroamer
December - Walking Robots (?)
Upcoming Competitions:
November - Find the Blob in the Hallway : Modified to find 3 blobs! Initial Rules - http://rssc.org/find-blob-hall-contest-rules-0
December - Talent Contest
Find the Blob in the Hall Contest
RSSC's first blob finding contest! You can see the rules here : http://rssc.org/find-blob-hall-contest-rules-0
1st Place - Doug
Prize : Calipers
Doug has a motorized base that is based on an Arduino board, motor driver, an encoders to track the X and Y location. It also has a bluetooth connection, that talks to his cell phone. The phone has an app based on OpenCV that finds a color blob and outputs the blob center.
2nd Place - John
Prize : Robot Builder's Bonanza book
John was using the ultrasonic sensor, which he says is greatly improved over the previous generation of lego kits, to find distance to the walls. In addition, he was using the gyro and compass for dead reckoning.
Show and Tell
No entries this month