Hack Meeting October 20, 2004
This hack meeting was a especially great meeting.  Lots of folks showed up and there was lots of stuff to see and talk about!  We have seen several new guys showing up lately.  Dennis Clark had some very nice boards to give away.  They had 4X20 LCD's with back lighting and some push buttons.  They were snapped up quickly!  Click on the pictures to see a bigger version.


Greg brought a toy that he is converting into a Autonomous Critter Crunch robot.  Left photo shows the robot with a scoop he has added.  Center shows the toy with its top removed.  This toy will make a great robot thanks to the differential steering motors.  Each motor drives two wheels on its side by a gear system.  The right photo shows some of the boards Greg is debating using in the robot.


Dennis Clark showed the latest modifications on his Critter Crunch robot, photo left.  He has moved the sonar lower and mounted it on the air powered lifting scoop.  This should help eliminate problems that had occurred last year with a whisker switch system had caused reset problems.  The sonar can now see better and can trigger the scoop to lift at the right time!  Photo right is Dennis C.'s new CMU camera.  After a little fiddling he got it to track colored objects as advertised!


Photo left is Ed's Critter Crunch entry for this year.  Its a quick robot job made of bits from other retired robots.  Right photo is Terrys Critter Crunch.  Terry is using his innovative Theremin Vision system.  The vertical rods are the sensing antenna's.  Terry has been working on this robot for some time and has every thing meticulously designed and assembled!  He's planning on running it against human controlled Critters.  It will be very interesting to see how well it does!


Dennis L. showed his Mini Sumo's in progress, photo left.  The sumo with the green tires will use a Acroname Brain Stem for control.  The blue tire bot uses high power servos with extra gears to the wheels to make for a fast and powerful sumo.  Photo right is Jeff's proto setup to help him learn to program the O-Pic and to learn to interface sensors.  On the setup is a nifty IR reflective sensors he got surplus from his work.  They can sense about  1 1/2" away.  Also testing a sonar and a big character LCD display.  The O-Pic board is on his first robot, presently with the wheels off the motors.  The robot chassis is made of carbon fiber board!


Left photo is of lots of folks talking, showing neat stuff, talking and eating a quick meal!  Right photo is Greg showing new member Steve the triangulation sensing features of his Object Grabbing robot. It was a great evening for folks to share in there passion in robots and technology!