Portland Area Robotics Society
Regular Meeting Minutes
March 7, 2009, 10:30AM
Agenda
1. Welcome – Larry Ossowski
2. Show and Tell – w/ Introductions
3. Line Maze Challenge – MARCH 2009
Show and Tell
Pete – Discussed progress on his
wheel commander and showed some control system drawing done in Open Office
Draw. Other option mentioned for open
source drawing were xfig and inkscape.
Jeff – Showed his current progress
on his Maze Solving 3Pi robot.
Tim – Rocket Nose cone
retainer. Update on the Portland State
Aerospace Society.
Don – Demo’d the current state of
his robotic drummer project. Discussed
inroads and parts for a new RF project using Nordic parts. Passed around an AVR647 board
Line Maze Challenge
The
Line Maze Challenge was held. Several
robots tried out the line maze but most were only at a line following and corner
phase. A good display none the less.
· Jeff tried his 3Pi
· Pete showed that his micro sumo robots could track
around corners
· Monty demonstrated his mini-tank and line maze robot.
Club Business – Put off further discussion
until April
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.
In
January, 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 will be
continued at the March 2009 meeting.
·
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?