Portland Area Robotics Society

Regular Meeting Minutes

Sep 1, 2007, 10:30AM

 

Agenda:

1.      Welcome and Announcements

2.      Presentations:

a.       Introduction to ’¡ÈMake’¡É controller %G–%@ Mark Moore

3.      News Reports

a.       Show-and-tell

Announcements

1.      The 2-year term of club officers is about to end. We are seeking nominations and volunteers for:

a.       President

b.      Vice-President

c.       Secretary

d.      Treasurer

2.      We need to get started on PDXBot 2008. Anyone interested in leading the planning and organization should contact Roger Ray.

 

Presentations

Mark Moore discussed the Make Controller

 

The Make controller is programmed in C, with a software library of hobbyist-oriented functions. A real-time operating system is included for concurrent programming. All software source code is open-source. The standard GNU compiler and linker is used to produce binary files for the controller. The ’¡ÈMAKE controller helper’¡É provides an Ethernet or USB interface for interactive monitoring and debug. The toolchain is available for Windows and Mac.

 

Mark and Roger Ray used the Make controller for their line maze robot, ’¡ÈBenjy’¡É. Benjy took 2nd place at PDXBot.07. The robot includes the Make controller, 2 servos with ’¡ÈWheelWatcher’¡É encoders, and line sensors. The chassis is a custom design drawn in QCAD and cut at BC Laser Works. Surmounting several challenges, Mark and Roger went from no code to 2nd place winner in 8 days.

 

Overall conclusions