Regular Meeting Minutes
January 5, 2008, 10:30AM
1. Welcome 2008 and Announcements
2. Presentations:
a. RoboMagellan BOOTSTRAP Project %G–%@ Robert Scheer
b. Tilt Invariant Compass Design and PDXBOT Suggestions %G–%@ Mark Gross
3. Show and Tell
1. New Officer Introductions
Robert F. Scheer %G–%@ President
Fred Stevens %G–%@ Vice President
Mark Gross %G–%@ Treasurer
Larry Ossowski %G–%@ Secretary
2. PDXBOT 08 Update
We have the Doubletree Hotel reserved for Saturday, May 17th. Sunday, May 18th will be the RoboMagellan Competition. Promotion of PDXBOT.08 will begin soon. Anyone interested in leading the planning and organization should contact Robert Scheer.
3. Membership Dues / Renewal
Payment of dues is now on the Honor System. We encourage paid membership, but will paid membership is not required for participation. Dues support club activities, such as to pay for our meeting room. The suggested membership price is $20/year, but $1 qualifies for a paid membership. Dues of $40 or more qualifies as a Sponsoring Membership, entitling the member to choose the main discussion topic at a club meeting. We will conduct pledge drives as needed, should membership payments be insufficient to meet club expenses. This dues structure will be revisited in one year.
4. Smalltalk Users Group Meeting %G–%@ Tuesday, January 8, 2008. Follow this link for more info: www.scheerstuff.net/tarzan/Squeak01082008 .
5. We need meeting topics and people willing to present topics of interest. If you have a good idea for a topic, please contact Robert Scheer.
BOOTSTRAP RoboMagellan Project %G–%@ Robert F. Scheer
The goal of the BOOTSTRAP project
is to design, build, thoroughly test and document a $500 RoboMagellan so that
virtually anyone could order up the parts, put it together in a week or two and
have a working robot that could make it around an SRS RoboMagellan course
successfully.
The first BOOTSTRAP(s) would debut at the May 2009 PDXBot here
in
The project will be divided into 4 parallel projects:
1. The chassis (frame, wheels, motors, shell....)
2. Sensorimotor board(s) (along with sonar, touch, encoder interface, motor
drivers, battery supply...)
3. AHRS (IMU-compass)
4. Main navigation and vision code for the main processor
The overriding goal is to generate more interest into the SRS RoboMagellan
contest and allow more people to participate. Over time this will raise the
level of hobby robotics as a whole.
Separate groups will be forming around each of the above 4 sections of the project.
An overall organizational meeting will be
announced soon. Stay tuned to the PARTS
Yahoo Discussion Group. Anyone
interested in helping with any stage of this project should contact Robert
Scheer.
The full presentation will be added to the PARTS Website and a link will be provided. Check Back Soon..
Development Progress %G–%@ Mark Gross
- PDXBOT Suggestions
Mark discussed his current progress on development a testing of a 3-axis tilt invariant compass. This is part of the Attitude and Heading Reference System suggested for use in the BOOTSTRAP Project. Mark has all the necessary components and should be sampling data soon. After successfully sampling data hell begin writing software to integrate and filter the data.
PDXBOT should add educational workshops to help promote the hobby. These workshops would provided tips and techniques for the beginner and advanced alike. We may not be able to implement this by PDXBOT.08. However, the Demo Table could easily be changed into workshops where more formal presentations are given at scheduled times. This suggestion was met with some enthusiasm from the members present at the meeting.
Dale Weber gave an update on his Robot, W.A.L.T.E.R., and his experiences to date using the Hammer processor from Tin Can Tools. The Hammer is an ARM 9 development system in a 40 pin DIP from factor.
Don Domes, a Technology Education Instructor from