Minutes from the December 2004

Connecticut Robotics Society Meeting:

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Total attendance: 20

The meeting commenced with a 30 minute viewing of “Physics of Space Flight”.

After this, Jake did the usual introductions.

Jim came up next with the suggestion that we should move our website to another host. The new host Jim suggested (GoDaddy.com) would save the club about $60 a year. While our old host (FatCow.com) gave us a ton of features, we rarely used them so it was decided that the move was for the best.

After this was settled, Mike came up with a review of the book “March of the Machines” by Kevin Warwick. Mike explained what the book was about (breakthroughs in AI for the most part) and also gave his own opinions of the book. In the end, Mike said that he would recommend this book to anyone who is interested in the development of AI. Thanks Mike!

Someone else came up with a review of the book “I Cyborg” also by Kevin Warwick. In this very comprehensive review, he explained the general content (mostly about how humans can be implanted with computer chips) of the book and described several topics addressed by it. Thank you for this great review!

Next, Les talked about some of the projects Scott has been working on including a chronometer of some sort that was able to measure the speed of an object being thrown. Les brought in several pictures for everyone to look at and also talked about how some of the inventions worked. Thanks Les!

Another member brought in a test robot for their FIRST robotic team. This prototype 'bot was already able to move about via remote control with great ease. Great work!

Jake came up next with a very impressive demonstration of Electric Field Lines and Equal Potential Lines. He described what these were and how they worked, and to demonstrate the points he was making, he brought in an activity for everyone to participate in. After dividing into a few large groups, Jake gave everyone a power supply, voltmeter, and a small circuit. The objective was for each group to graph the Equal Potential Lines. After everyone finished, Jake explained the results. Thanks Jake for this very interesting demonstration.

The meeting adjourned around 3:30pm