Columbus Robotics Society

Our July meeting was very cool. Carlo told us about ProgramD, a chat bot implementation of A.L.I.C.E.

Scott ran out of time but was able to show a few cool things with his robot Carnot, including some text-to-speech, serial-http bridging and motor control using the Serial Servo Controller.

We also started to have a bot building event during the last Saturday of the month.

Some Useful Links:

• Robot Visits Patients When Doctor Can’t - Robotic devices finding their way into the medical world
• RunBot
  - “RunBot” the adaptive, fast, walking robot.
• Robot dogs
  - Four-legged dogs that negotiate uneven, treacherous, and difficult terrain
• Asahi Beer Robot - “Poor me another one, Asahi”

6:30 - 6:35pm Opening (Scott Preston)
6:35 - 6:50pm Roundtable introduction (All)
6:50 - 7:00pm CRS organization updates (Scott Preston)
7:00 - 7:25pm Show and Tell “ProgamD” on pattern discovery (Carlo Vedovato)
7:25 - 7:50pm Hands-on demo: Overview on robotic vision and mechanics (Scott Preston) (Carnot Robot)
7:50 - 8:00pm Announcing Bot-Builder meeting + any other Business (Scott Preston)

For more information about the latest with the Columbus Robotics Society, checkout our Google group at http://groups.google.com/group/columbus-robotics-society?hl=en.

I am here for our first design get-together, unfortunately, it’s only me, mainly because I don’t think the email made it to enough of you. Sorry, my bad…

Common Elements:

• DC motors
• PWM Controlled (initially by RC Receiver)
• Differential Drive (Tri-Cycle)

Design 1:

I would like the first design to be a small servo powered robot. The servo motors would be modified for continuous rotation and and be mounted to the chassis containing batteries and receiver.

Parts Needed: (Parts with ** are in stock)

• 2 - Servo Motors **
• 2 - Servo Motor Mounts **
• 2 - Wheels to Fit to servo spline **
• 1 - Battery Case (4AA or NiCad Pac) **
• 1 - Caster Wheel
• 1 - Chassis to mount these less than 1sq./ft

Design 2:

I would like the second design to be controlled by DC Gear-Motors with Speed Control. The DC Gear motors will be purchased from Jameco and we will need to manufacture/purchase mounts, hubs, wheels.

Parts Needed: (Parts with ** are in stock)

• 2 - Speed Controls **
• 2 - DC Gear Motors
• 2 - Motor Mounts
• 2 - Hubs to connect shaft to wheel
• 2 - Wheels to Fit to hub
• 1 - Battery Case (4AA or NiCad Pack) **
• 1 - Caster Wheel
• 1 - Chassis to mount these less than 1sq./ft

The next steps are to aquire the parts mentioned above or get together to design and pick out the chassis, casters, motors, etc. I would like to have a meeting next week to discuss these items and select parts for purchase, or even start the build.

We had another nice meeting. Though we did not actually start building a robot we decided on what we want to build, and how we want to build it.

The What:

We would like a robot to give guided tours of the Grandview Heights Library.

The How:

Each month we will have 2 teams compete to build the best robot to meet multiple challenges. Our first challenge is locomotion and will involve setting 2 robots against each other in a privative obstical course. We will measure the robots abilities with the following attributes:

1. Accuracy - This will measure the robots ability to stay on course.
2. Speed - This will measure the speed the robot is able to traverse the course.
3. Power - This will measure the robots ability to stay on course and the speed at which the robot will be able to traverse the course while carrying weight.

The course will be a straight line and it will have inclines, and varying surfaces.

We are still in the process of forming teams, though I will assist both teams.

Our plan for our first meeting of 2007 will be to build a robot or two. Each member will bring some parts, either chassis, motors, electronics, or sensors and we will do our best to put it together.

Well the site has changed from a one page blurb to a full site. I will be updating the site with a forum and will be posting photos on flikr at some point in time.