News
Pizza and drinks will be provided (donation helpful), and the NCSU Underwater Robotics club will be presenting.
Bring your projects to share with everyone. Friends and family welcome!
April Meeting
Other gadgets and such will be presented. We hope to have a good turnout after the big success of the Robot Rumble at the NCMLS. You can view photos on Daniel Kohn's site.
March Meeting - Silicon Microrobots - presented by Seth Hollar
silicon microrobots, with emphasis on developing a large force,
large displacement actuation process, as well as design, assembly,
and results of the project. He will conclude by touching upon future
applications and challenges in the field.
The solar-powered 10 mg silicon microrobot developed in the course
of Seth's research was used to demonstrate that an autonomous robot
could be built using silicon fabrication technologies. Such a
fabrication allows the potential for building many microrobots at a
relatively low cost. The 3 basic components of the robot were: 1)
power 2) brains and 3) locomotion. Each component was developed in a
separate process, with a final assembly step to join them together.
Most notably a MEMS process was developed with integrated hinges and
high-aspect ratio electrostatic actuators, which served as the
locomotion component. With further development, using
existing technology, the process could be refined to integrate all
the components and electronics on the same chip.
Through batch fabrication, large numbers of expendable robots to
perform a desired task could be produced at a relatively low cost.
There is still a long way to go with microrobot development both for
generic tasks and application-
fundamental problems are solved, a move towards more sophisticated
systems will be seen, involving integrated communication and sensor
systems.
February meeting
Cory Barton from NCAT's IEEE Robotics Team will be bringing several members of the team over from Greensboro to give a presentation on their "work in progress" robot entry for the IEEE SouthEastCon Robotic Competition: "Return to the Moon" http://ewh.ieee.
Bring your Christmas goodies to show off!
January Meeting Canceled
Congratulations to our new president, Allen Moore and PR guy, William Cox. The treasurer/secretary position is still under dispute, though I think Robert Matney may get it since the first place "winner", Erica Young, will be out of town for an extended period of time.
Please suggest meeting topics for the upcoming meetings!
December Meeting - Insight Racing, & Club Elections
Grayson Randall, the founder of Insight Racing, spoke about 2005 and 2006 Grand DARPA Challenges and also the 2007 DARPA Urban Challenge. The DARPA Urban Challenge is an autonomous vehicle research and development program with the goal of developing technology that will keep warfighters off the battlefield and out of harm’s way. The Urban Challenge features autonomous ground vehicles maneuvering in a mock city environment, executing simulated military supply missions while merging into moving traffic, navigating traffic circles, negotiating busy intersections, and avoiding obstacles.
The new club officers elected at the December meeting as follows:
President: Allen Moore, Public Relations: William Cox, Secretary: Erica Young
All members and visitors enjoyed the pizza and soft drinks offered.
December Meeting - Insight Racing, elections, XMAS FUN
Grayson Randall, the founder of Insight Racing, will be speaking about the DARPA Urban Challenge.
We will hold club elections for the office of President, Public Relations, and Secretary/Treasurer.
There will be food/drink provided. Bring your friends!
Club Elections in December
President:
Chris Moncsko, Rodney Radford, Allen Moore, Erica Young
Public Relations:
Erica Young, William Cox
Secretary:
William Cox, Bobby Emory (claims to be moving), Robert Matney
Happy voting.
November Meeting coming up ...
This assemble can provide a complete drive train for various robotic projects.
We'll also have free pizza and drinks at the meeting. Bring your friends and interesting projects.
All makers, creators, builders, tinker-ers, and robot geeks welcome! Bring your projects to share.
Note: The room has changed from Room 1220 to Room 1226 (just down the hall). Whoever gets there first, could you please post a note on the door to Room 1220?
October Meeting coming up ...
Several members brought in loads of goodies (surplus electronics and hardware) to share.
Note: The meeting room has changed from Room 1220 to Room 1226 (just down the hall).
September meeting
and (I think) had a good time.
-> Allen Moore showed us his work-in-progress, which is a robot operated
over a WiFi link, complete with his tank treads
(http://www.homebot-robotics.com/Products.html), and a wireless video
camera. He based it off an article from Robot Magazine. The processor is
a Rabbit uC.
-> William (that's me) showed pictures and video from RoboCup 2007. You
can check out most of the video I shot up on Revver:
http://one.revver.com/find/user/gallamine
-> Allen also showed up some creations he made on his brand-new-used
rapid prototyping machine. He has a 8" x 8" 10" build envelope (right?)
and the material costs $1.50 in^3.
-> We had a lengthy discussion about the future of our club. I'll be
sending notes on that in a separate email.
*-> Next Months Meeting:* Autonomous Soaring Project - Dam Edwards will
talk about his autonomous glider that searchers for thermals. He hopes
to beat the world record in autonomous soaring - 141.7 miles. More info
here: http://soaring.goosetechnologies.com/
*Please spread the word!*
-William
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