APM: TRG Maker SIG - August 13, 2009

[jameschoate at austin.rr.com]

Hello, and Hurrah!

The next TRG Maker SIG will be the evening of Thursday, August 13. We promise an interesting evening of hands-on technology enjoyment. Our current schedule is:

7-8pm    Soldering Session #3: recap basic soldering and introduction to PCB soldering techniques.

         We have some soldering tools, but if you have your own please bring them!

         This is the next to last soldering session. After this are two sessions on how to use a meter.

8-8:30pm Regular Robot Group business

8-10pm   Lego Mindstorms Session #3: Making the rover go...

         The goal is to have our first rovers programmed to travel a fixed path. No sensors or other interaction is planned. The basic path should be a square. A basic pseudo-code description:

         task main()

         define repeat=4
         define distance=?
         define angle=90

         for i=1 to repeat, i+
         {

         subroutine goforward(distance)
         subroutine turnright(angle)

         }

         If we get everybody to this point we'll add the bump sensors and modify the above code to allow the rovers to wander around and take suitable action on bumping objects. The step after this will be a down looking sensor to determine black or white surface color. With this we can modify the 'bump' code so the rovers can participate in a 'robot sumo' contest in a ring. I will bring the competition ring for testing. We -suggest- that you consider making the navigation, bump, and floor color sensor routines be seperate tasks controlled by a master task.

If you have other projects, demonstrations, or presentations please feel free to come and participate. This is an 'open mike' event in that respect. The next Maker SIG meeting after this will be August 27.

Hope you all can make it, and don't forget to pass the word around please!!!

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Venimus, Vidimus, Dolavimus

James Choate
jameschoate at austin.rr.com
james.choate at twcable.com
512-657-1279
www.ssz.com
http://www.twine.com/twine/1128gqhxn-dwr/solar-soyuz-zaibatsu
http://www.twine.com/twine/1178v3j0v-76w/confusion-research-center

Adapt, Adopt, Improvise
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