Sixteen people attended and the collection raised $17 for which Science Alive will be very gratefully received. Our next meeting will be on Wednesday 21st July 2010 in the Science Alive Seminar Room. I have a fancy screwdriver that was left in the room, and King has misplaced a laptop power lead. Please get in touch via the mailing list if you can help get these back to their owners.

Mark suggested we move to monthly meetings and a majority thought this was a good idea. Science Alive have agreed and the room is available for the remainder of the year, so we now meet on the 3rd Wednesday of every month.

Kay showed us incredible jointed moving models of dragon, cat, trebuchet, and a remote controlled model Roman Galley. Constructed from scratch many using his home made electric scroll saw, and intricate carving. Must be seen to be appreciated.

Peter brought along the MKII lawn mower prototype electronics and a huge motor platform on which they run. Now based on ATMega328, state machines drawn in Dia and auto generated code, FET Motor control, with HM6532 compass module. The platform wiggled across the room nicely on a set bearing. Peter also mentioned that it is very good at turning towards large metal filing cabinets. I think it should be called Luke as it uses the force.

Robin spoke about his 32 channel automatic watering system hosted on a Linksys WRT54G wireless router running openwrt. The system is web controlled using json objects delivered to a browser that overlays control rectangles over a satellite image of the property for the gui control interface. The web server uses open source http://code.google.com/p/mongoose/ which readily integrates the control function calls. The same json file delivered to the browser is also used in the server to associate the 1 wire IC addresses with the active areas on the gui. The water solenoid valves are controlled using 70c triacs, driven by 1 wire chips that interface to the wrt54 via a serial to 1 wire converter avoiding the need to write kernel drivers. A current transformer protects the well pump by shutting down the system if the water solenoids are not drawing the appropriate power demanded by the system.

Sachin presented his work using genetic algorithms. He showed a demonstration of a genetic algorithm approach to generating a photographic image using ascii art. Then a demo of using genetic algorithms to evolve a player for the  open source game Tenix. Each solution was iteratively refined using a fitness score, mutations were found to be counter productive above 0.5%. Eventually Sachin wants to teach his crab hexapod to learn how to move using the  genetic algorithm approach. Sachin has posted his open source projects on Google code here: http://code.google.com/p/neural-network-classes/ and here http://code.google.com/p/tennix/

Charles brought along his half size Dalek to be used at a wedding in February. Charles spoke about the journey towards making the Dalek involving glues and PVA not setting when sandwiched between polystyrene, completing his CNC machine, a vacuum forming jig that we saw last time, and different paint and shape choices. The Dalek is looking very impressive.

Thanks to all those who came and especially those who presented their work.

Our next meeting will be on Wednesday 21st July at 6.30pm.

Chch Robotics 16 June 2010

Sixteen people attended on our first meeting this year without daylight
saving. The gold coin collection raised $22.90 for Science Alive.

 Synco opened with a talk about problems with CAA approvals for GPS
boomerang and his new powered plane with choices for autonomous and remote
control to work around flight restrictions and address new markets. He also
brought along servos adapted for 180 degree operation with additional
resistors at the ends of the feedback potentiometer. The servos were driving
a laser for test purposes but ultimately are intended to drive a tracking
aerial. Hooked into the xplane flight simulator to track a simulated plane
position the pointer looked very convincing with a neat swivel at times to
overcome the lack of 360 degree rotation. See http://gpsboomerang.com

 Timothy showed us the beginning of a football robot simulation written in
python as part of the journey toward Junior Robocup football. The simulation
accepts a mouse entered track and displays a graphic that turns in the
direction of travel. Bravely Timothy also showed us the source code and
walked us through its operation. http://github.com/tfhmanning/Robotic_Python

 Hanno gave us a preview of his new robot development called TBot destined
for schools. It has dual geared motor drive with rototion sensors on large
wheels, 5 line following sensors, zigbee, bluetooth, usb, speaker,
microphone, tri colour LED with a target price of $50 US. It interfaces to
the 12 blocks programming environment and is based on the Parallax
Propeller. The robot will recharge its batteries through the USB cable.
Holes in the top plate accept many extensions such as Meccano, Lego and Vex.
Further details on http://hannoware.com <http://honnoware.com/> as they
become available.

 Timothy took to the floor again and showed further developments on his
tethered under water robot (ROV) made from electric motors, brass
propellers, drain pipe directional tubes and polystyrene to achieve neutral
buoyancy. Timothy showed a video of an ROV conducting a set of tasks for a
competition in the US.

 Charles brought along a vacuum forming jig for making model Dalek parts and
had a number of different materials that he had vacuum formed.

 Kay showed us his walking legs now with an energetic gait and steerable
zimmer frame that walked rapidly across the car park.

 Thanks to all who came and especially those who brought things to show. Our
next meeting is planned for Wednesday 16th June 2010. See http://kiwibots.org for
final date and directions.

Late breaking news: Expect an impromtu meeting with Chris Hamling from http://vexrobotics.co.nz/ regarding a new national robotic competition.

Richard Jones