Minutes from the May 2005

Connecticut Robotics Society Meeting:

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Total attendance: 20+

The meeting commenced with a half hour viewing the 2004 Trinity College Fire Fighting Robotics Competition.

After this, Jake did the usual introductions.

Nathanial was up next with a short discussion of his fire fighting 'bot which took 1'st place at the last competition. Great work, and congratulations!

John came up next with a short talk on some of the walkers that were at the last fire fighting competition.

Jim than gave a brief summary of the seminars that took place at the last Trinity contest.

Following a short announcement by Jake of a robotic search and rescue competition, a general conversation on robotics competitions commenced.

Peter came up after this with his fire fighting 'bot which successfully extinguished the candle 2 out of 3 times. Great work!

Next, Scott discussed several items including robotic conventions, and 3D printers (including how they worked, and what different types exist). Thanks Scott.

Our speaker this month was Bill Ruehl who drove all the way up from Pennsylvania to be with us today. In this very interesting speech, Bill talked about modifying windshield wiper motors (including his own experiences with the motors, and different modifications you can make to improve performance). He also discussed wheel encoders, wire connectors (Molex, etc.), and in addition to this he gave out a few pairs of those windshield wiper motors out for free to anyone who wanted one, and raffled off a silicon wafer actually imprinted with a circuit design!

His speech ended with a DVD showing a news interview done with him and Kyle about the construction of Argus (a robot designed for a search and recover type of competition), an autonomously controlled model helicopter capable of hovering several feet above the ground, and a short film on the construction of IC chips. Thank you Bill for this great and informative talk!

The meeting adjourned around 3:30pm