Portland Area Robotics Society
Regular Meeting Minutes
January 4, 2009,
10:30AM
Agenda
1. Welcome – Fred Stevens
2. Show and Tell – w/ Introductions
3.
Club Business
4. December
Line Maze Challenge
Announcements
1.
Happy
New Year!
2.
Special
Election next Meeting for P.A.R.T.S. Vice President
· Fred Stevens has assumed the office of
President after the resignation of former P.A.R.T.S. President Robert Scheer.
· In accordance with the club bylaws, member
Donald Davis has accepted temporary appointment as P.A.R.T.S. Vice President. Formal assumption of office is pending a vote
of current P.A.R.T.S. members scheduled for the February 2009 P.A.R.T.S.
regular meeting.
· All P.A.R.T.S. members are requested to
attend the February meeting to complete the required voting process.
3.
Line
Maze Challenge, March 2009 P.A.R.T.S. Meeting
· Get your maze solving robots
ready!
Club Business
1. It’s time again for membership
dues for 2009.
·
By a vote of the club membership in December 2007, payment
of dues is now on the “Honor System”. Paid
membership is encouraged, but not required for club participation. Suggested membership price is $20/year, but $1
qualifies for a paid membership. Dues of
$40 or more qualifies as a “Sponsoring Membership”. Dues support club activities, such as to
cover the monthly rental for meeting room and the P.A.R.T.S. website.
2. Donald Davis was
appointed by the club Executive Officers to fill the open office of Vice
President.
·
Final approval will be put to an official vote of the club
membership at the February P.A.R.T.S. meeting.
3.
Fred Stevens, P.A.R.T.S. President, opened a candid
discussion of what the membership wanted for the future direction of P.A.R.T.S. The following are the ideas and direction
that was discussed. This discussion is
not closed and will be posted on the P.A.R.T.S. Yahoo group for further
commentary.
·
Most members present like the current meeting format that
showcases member show and tell. It is
good to see what others are working on and to see projects. It provides motivation for further robot
development.
·
P.A.R.T.S. will not be sponsoring a large scale Robot
competition in 2009. PDXBot was last held
in 2007 and will not be held in 2009.
o
Botfest 2008 was a success but should P.A.R.T.S. spend
resources to put on another one? Botfest
2008 involved lots of effort and was coordinated almost solely by Pete Skeggs. However, there was limited club member
participation in the competitions. Most
competitors were from outside the P.A.R.T.S. group. The general feeling was that P.A.R.T.S. should
work to raise the level of Robot development within the club.
o
P.A.R.T.S. Outdoor Challenge 2008 – Had a good response for
member participation. A future event similar
to this may be considered if members are developing robots for these events.
o
Line Maze Challenges – These will continue at future
meeting to help promote maze solving robot development among interested club member.
The next challenge is at the March P.A.R.T.S.
meeting.
·
There was interest in a robot building challenge at a
future P.A.R.T.S. meeting similar to what was coordinated by Steve Davies at a
meeting in 2007. Members were broken
into team and given a box of surplus parts with which to build a robot to
complete a simple challenge; all within a 2 hour meeting.
·
One suggestion proposed a robotics collaboration among club
members to design and build robots to solve previous years FIRST Robot Challenges.
This suggestion did receive some positive feedback from the members present at the
meeting.
·
Start a club development project similar to the development
of the MKIII controller board previously developed by P.A.R.T.S. members. There was no discussion of what this project
would focus on but it would not necessarily be a new controller board. This collaboration project may leverage Open Tech Space.
§
Any volunteers to coordinate a collaboration project?
§
Project suggestions?
4. It was discussed that
P.A.R.T.S. needs greater visibility to the general Portland Tech Community. To achieve this we will be taking steps to
advertise upcoming meetings through various free venues as shown below. If anyone has any suggestions bring them to the
next meeting.
Presentation
No
Formal Presentation
Show and Tell
Scott Winner – Talked with Free Geek, Toured the Free
Geek building. He is working on
providing BEAM robots for their store display and hopes to have something to
take to High School Robotics clubs fro display. Free Geek specializes in recycling used
computer hardware and refurbishing older hardware into usable computers.
Dominic - Voice actuated R2D2 – Demo of new toy.
Member - Surveyor Web Enabled Robot – Open Source
robot. Current Goal – Line Maze using
front Camera and special front mount for camera.
Jeff – Programming the 3Pi for line maze. Current Algorithm has issues with amount of
memory in SRAM.
Jamie – New, First meeting, interested in Robots and
Building Robots.
Pete – Lessons on fixing problems with Laptops. Lessons so others will not have the same
problems.
Steve Davies – DorkbotPDX.
Monty Goodson – Line Maze Challenge. He showed a miniature RC Tank conversion using
his new version of the Megabitty. Solarbotics
will distribute the new Megabitty when it is available later this year.
Pierre – Visiting Portland,
Visiting P.A.R.T.S. Welcome Pierre
Wim – Techshop
Portland – Opening in Beaverton. Open Tech Space – http://opentechspace.com/.
Donald
Davis – Surplus Gizmos is now supplying
the Arduino
Dork Board. Arduino Cult Induction.