Minutes from the January 2004

Connecticut Robotics Society Meeting:

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Total attendance: 29

The meeting started by watching a 30 minute QuickTime movie of the 2003 Trinity College Firefighting Robot Contest.

After that, Jake did the usual introductions. He also had several giveaways items including copies of Servo magazine and some Robot Store catalogs.

Our speaker this month was Jeff Katz from ABB Robotics. Jeff’s talk was titled “The Science of Real Robotics”. ABB Robotics is the number one supplier of robots to companies that work with metal. ABB also makes robots for hazardous duty. Jeff touched on the topic of “FERP” (Fast, Easy Robot Programming). This was a very interesting talk. Thank you, Jeff.

Jeffery H. was up next. He gave a talk entitled “The Advantages and Disadvantages of Different Types of Locomotion” (or What is the Best kind of Locomotion for You). Jeffrey talked about 2, 3, 4+ wheeled robots and robots that employ treads. A very informative talk, thanks Jeffery.

One of our new members introduced us to a number of very useful robot publications.

Nathaniel brought in and showed off his Firefighting Robot.

Next, Jake had a surprise contest for us. He brought in a bunch of “mystery” stepper motors. Our job was to break up into teams to figure out the wiring using ohmmeters, and then get them moving with power supplies that he provided. Each stepper had two coils with three wires coming out of each coil. The top coil had red-brown-black wires, and the bottom coil had red-orange-yellow wires. It was determined that the two red wires were tied together and went to GND. The stepping order was determined to be: brown-orange-black-yellow. Very educational and a lot of fun. Thanks, Jake!

Finally, we closed the meeting by watching some of the pictures Jake took on his December trip to China.

The meeting adjourned around 4:30pm