Past Meetings
JULY 2001
The third Pylon Contest was held. This time the prize was won by Dave.
We also agreed upon our first set of formal by-laws and elected our first set of officers.
A short video tape was shown of a BattleBot that Robert Doerr ran.
Keith showed us the progress he's made on Jeeper.
Lewis showed us a thing or two about ultrasonic range detection.
We had 16 adults and 4 kids present. Our best turnout so far!
ERIM donated a 350 pound bot to the YAAARC. See the pictures for more details.
See pictures
JUNE 2001
Once again we held the Pylon Contest.
See pictures
MAY 2001
This month we had a number of special guests present from schools and businesses around Ann Arbor. This meetings primary focus was to orientate our visitors with the U.S.First Robotics Competition. We also had a contest to see who's 'bot could drive out to a pylon, drive around it, and return to where it had started (all autonimously). See pictures of the meeting and all the cool 'bots.
APRIL 2001
We had 17 people at this meeting! This was the best turnout ever :-)
See pictures of the meeting here.
We further discussed the formation of a U.S.First
team. Keith will have videos and more information soon...
Jeff King showed a SBC (Single Board Computer) he uses in a data collection unit his company builds. It includes a Flash memory, CDPD RF modem, and vibration detector.
Paul Haas and Erik Kauppi suggested that we have a Robot Competition. Paul published the following rules:
Prize is $40. Buy 1.33 Y2MD kits...
The course consists of a start point, a line and a pylon:
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. | o
(Start) | (Pylon)
|
|
Robots start at the start, go around the pylon, return to the start and
comes to a complete stop. The robot team with the most coolness points
wins.
The robot builder defines the line, the startpoint and places the pylon.
The robot builder should provide the pylon. The pylon must be at least 10
robot lengths in front of the line. The start point must be at least 1
robot length behind the line. A robot length is the longest diagonal of
the smallest box that would hold the robot.
Coolness points will be awarded by those Yaaarc members present and on
behalf of their robots. Each team consists of one or more human Yaaarc
members and up to two robots. A team cannot vote for itself. Robots
which successfully complete a course get two votes, other robots that move
autonomously get one vote.
Rules:
0. Judge's decisions are final (it costs $40 to be a judge)
1. The judge can't win, but he can enter robots to get more votes.
2. The judge gets an additional half vote to use to break a tie.
3. Robots must be entirely autonomous once the start signal is given.
[It's cooler if the start signal is something other than the on/off switch.]
4. If no robot completes a course, the judge keeps the money until June.
MARCH 2001
We had a very good turnout with a total of 9 people present. Some strolled in later in the evening. We showed off a number of LegoBots, both tethered and autonomous. We mostly discussed the possibility of the YAAARC sparking interest in some of our local schools to become involved in the U.S.First Robot Competitions. It was agreed to 'test the waters' and see what interest and resources we can scrounge up.
See pictures of the 'bots and people that were there.
We want to thank Erik for keeping CORSA open for us, as he was a bit under the weather...
FEBRUARY 2001
JANUARY 2001
DECEMBER 2000
NOVEMBER 2000
OCTOBER 2000
SEPTEMBER 2000
AUGUST 2000
JULY 2000
JUNE 2000
Announced on the mailing list for the June meeting was a contest, set forth by Paul Haas. The contest
required that you bring a 'bot to the meeting that could deliver a request to Paul asking him for an Oscilloscope. Erik had the most elegant solution by far. His 'bot would seek out the flashlight that Paul would point at it, and drive toward the light. Once the front bumper of the 'bot ran into Paul an onboard voice message said "Paul, may I please, please, have an oscilloscope?". Jay's 'bot ran up to Paul (who was standing in a 'safe' location) and over Amateur Radio came the request for a scope. Not elegant, but it was ginned up quickly on the spot. Revision 2 requested the scope by utilizing the voice announcement on Erik's 'bot.
Only 4 people attended the meeting but we had alot of fun. See pictures of the meeting.
MAY 2000
The May 24th meeting was held at Corsa Instruments. Eric was out sick and only a few of us (four) showed up, but we had a fun time! We connected up the 12 volt battery, motor-controller, and a Stamp-II running a program that simply drives the Jeep forward for a couple seconds, then backward for a couple seconds. The Jeep platform was strong enough to let some of us take turns riding atop or new "toy"! This is a big enough robot that the entire parking lot was our test ground. So long to desktop testing.
We chowed on pizza and pop and chatted about what we'd like to do with the Jeep.
APRIL 2000
The April 26th meeting was held at Corsa Instruments. We discussed what direction the club should take. Jay Nugent suggested building a project a bit larger than a Lego machine. He suggested a large platform based on a kiddie "Jeep" chassis.
Jay also agreed to Webmaster our website.
MARCH 2000
There was no meeting this month.... <sniff>
FEBRUARY 2000
The February 23rd meeting was held at Corsa Instruments. We had a very good turnout. Several of us worked on various parts of a simple Lego-Bot. While someone worked to modify servos, someone built the Lego chassis, and Rick Green tried his hand at programming a Basic Stamp-II. It all came together and the Lego-Bot worked!
FEB 1999 thru JAN 2000
There were no meetings for a year... <super sniff>
JANUARY 1999
The January meeting was held in the basement of Tim Wright. What went on I don't know... I wasn't there :-(
SEPTEMBER 1998
The September 23rd meeting was held at Robyn's house....
FEBRUARY 1998
The February 25th meeting was....
JUNE 1997
The June meeting was Tuesday, June 17th at Robyn Rissell's home in Ypsilanti.
Agenda items:
1) Tee Shirts, anybody want to discuss/try this one?
2) Geeky badges with moving parts rather than boring old LEDs?
3) Other ideas
4) Planning future meetings
5) Begin discussion on potential con activities.
MAY 1997
May's meeting was Tuesday, May 20th at Pete Hines's house. Pete wasn't feeling well so he didn't take good notes on the meeting items. David is making good progress on his robot. Robyn brought a cool Lego type device with a nice motor control unit. The results of Paul's microwaved candle experiments were discussed, video has been promised at some future date.
APRIL 1997
April's meeting was at David Warner's house in Novi. David demonstrated a really impressive circuit board manufacturing capability. It was greatly aided by the etchtant circulation tank that Paul built from very simple parts.
MARCH 1997
Dunno... Anyone remember???
FEBRUARY 1997
Peter Hines was elected as the "meeting coordinator"
The meeting coordinator is responsible for scheduling time and place for upcoming meetings.
MAY 1995
The very first meeting of the YAAARC was held on May 25th, 1995
It was held at 7:00 PM at Aubree's Saloon, 39 East Cross St. in Ypsilanti's historic Depot Town.
The meeting was attended by:
Paul Haas
Ron Wilson
Greg Cronau
Erik Kauppi
Pete Hines
And one or two others
The first challenge was to build a controller for an inverted pendulum. Anyone
who showed up at a meeting with a working model would have their dinner
purchased by the rest of the group. No one has ever collected on the free dinner
offer. We also discussed what types of contest to hold at the Confusion convention
in January 1996.
Topics discussed:
1. Choose a better name than "YAAARC".
2. Suggestions for robot contests for Confusion.
3. Paul Haas brought a tiny computer and some servo's to show off.
It'll be similar to the hardware he used in his "wave to the cats" web
page, http://hogwild.hamjudo.com/cgi-bin/wave