Minutes from the October 2005
Connecticut Robotics Society Meeting:
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Total attendance: 30
The meeting started with a
presentation by Michael of his new BASIC interpreter, SMBI (self-modifying
BASIC interpreter). After an
overview of the interpreter (commands, IDE, etc.) he talked about its ability to
write programs that modify themselves, and also its ability to create stand
alone executable files. Very nice
work!
Jim was up next with an
introduction to our monthly contests of Maze Solving, Line Following, and Sumo.
Afterwards, Mark W. and Walter
K. gave the maze solving competition a try. Marks Lego 'bot performed magnificently and was able to make
it to the finish mark without problems.
Walter's however had some trouble with the narrow walls but he said he
should be able to fix it for next meeting.
Line following was next with
Mark, Jim S., and Walter, and all three robots were able to make it through the
track without problems!
Last (but not least) was the
sumo contest between Jim and Walter.
In this competition, both 'bots performed magnificently, however whenever
it came to actually pushing each other off the course, Jim's sumo bot was able
to scoop up Walter's and tip it off its wheels, giving Jim a win for each of
the three runs!
This was followed by a general
conversation on the Sumo contest with John G. sharing some of his stories on
the contest.
Next up, another member talked
about his Lego robot for the Trinity College Fire Fighting Contest. Afterwards, he gave it a trial run
through our maze competition arena.
Great work!
Another member than showed
everyone something he's been working on now for some time, a device capable of
moving an arm in 3D built using Legos and PVC... very nice work!
Jake then showed off some of
the Chinese soccer robots he recently received and discussed the possibility
that we might create a team for this contest for the next Trinity event in
April.
Afterwards, Jake discussed the
possibility of creating “mini-classes” for each meeting (soldering, using the
Lego RCX, PC board etching, etc.).
If you might be interested in creating such a class, please send an
email to Jake at: jake@mendelssohn.name.
Everyone then split into groups
to look through the many Lego Mindstorms kits that we now have access to at GHAMAS.
The meeting adjourned around 4:00pm