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LEGO Robotics Group of Ann Arbor invites you to compete in Sumo-bot 6
What: Our annual LEGO-based robotics sumo wrestling competition pits robot
contestants against each other in a struggle to shove one another off of the
sumo-ring. Last year's event fielded 34 robots in 2 classes competing on 2
sumo-rings, we will be using 4 sumo-rings this year to allow for maximum number
of matches. Event rules and details may be found at www.24tooth.com/sumobot6/.
When: Saturday, September 18, 2004 from 10:00 AM to 4:30 PM (doors open for
competitors at 9:00 AM)
Where: At the Ann Arbor Hands-On Museum located at 220 E. Ann St. here in Ann
Arbor. The museum can be reached at 734-995-5439.
Who: The competition is open to anyone who can build a robot that conforms to
the event rules, pre-register their robot, and attend the event. Everyone is
welcome as a spectator. Free admission to museum for 2 builders per each robot
entry, normal museum admission price for spectators.
Why: For fun and experience with LEGO robotics and because based on fair
competition, Sumo-bot wrestling encourages friendships and the exchange of
ideas, showcases accomplishments, advances robotics, and seeds interest in
future generations of robot builders.
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Subject:
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2nd Annual Midwest Lego Train Show ........call for participation........
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.announce, lugnet.events, lugnet.trains.org.niltc, lugnet.org.us.michlug, lugnet.org.us.michiana-lug, lugnet.org.us.indylug, lugnet.org.us.lrgoaa, lugnet.org.us.gmlug, lugnet.trains.org
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Followup-To:
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lugnet.events, lugnet.trains.org.niltc
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Date:
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Fri, 14 May 2004 02:53:40 GMT
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Highlighted:
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(details)
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Viewed:
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14029 times
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2nd Annual Midwest Lego Train Show
NILTC is pleased to announce that we will be holding the 2nd Annual
Midwest Lego Train Show in Wheaton, IL December 4-5th. This show was proven to
be a great success last year smashing all previous attendance records while at
the same time bringing together 3 separate Lego train clubs. This year we are
looking to encourage even more clubs to come join the fun. We have a large
indoor facility at the historic Cantigny Park.
Any interested clubs or individuals should contact OnDrew Hartigan to discuss
the details.
Friday, December 3rd
SETUP noon until we are done. Please note that we will have visitors in
the building until 4pm.
Saturday, December 4th
SETUP 7-9am SHOW 9am-4pm PLAY time 4pm-?
Sunday, December 5th
SHOW 9am-4pm tear down 4pm-?
Address
1s 151 Winfield rd.
Winfield, IL 60190
Directions:
http://www.cantignypark.com/NewSite/directions.htm
Last year we had 4 train layouts and 1 castle layout. While we have
named this show a "train show" all themes are welcome. From robotics to
moonbases, anything Lego will make a delightful addition to this event.
Thanks,
OnDrew
roj2323 at yahoo . com
-----------------------------------
p.s. Thank you Jason for helping me write this up.
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Hi all,
The Trash Day event will take place:
Saturday, April 17th. at 2:00 PM.
The location will be my house here in Ann Arbor, my street address is:
422 S. 7th. St.
My house is on the West side of the street about 3 houses from the intersection
of Liberty and Seventh. You can see a detailed map and also get directions from
your location by following this link to Mapquest.com:
Click here for map.
Doors will be open approximately at 12 noon for you to have time to test run the
route and debug your programs. If it is possible, please do not show up before
noon as we may not be home. :)
A word about parking...
We share a drive way with out neighbors, so parking is tight. However, there is
a street nearby that usually has plenty of parking available on it. If you find
our house and see the drive is full, continue south on 7th. until you reach
Jefferson (which intersects 7th. from the east). You can safely park on
Jefferson and walk the half block or so to my house. If this is unclear, just
stop in our drive way, and we will help you.
A word about programs and competition day...
I have successfully set up the current version of BricXcc on my laptop. BricXcc
is a front end GUI for the widely used NQC programming language for the RCX. I
also have RIS 2.0 on my desktop machine. So if you think you may be needing to
tweak your program on event day, and dont have your own laptop to bring along,
then you are welcome to use my stuff. If you use NQC or BricXcc, then just bring
your files on a floppy. If you use RIS 2.0 then you are going need to e-mail
your files to me ahead of time (my desktop floppy drive is not functioning).
If there are any questions or concerns, please let me know.
See you Saturday,
Jona
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In lugnet.org.us.lrgoaa, Jason Spears wrote:
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Ok, so we sorta came to a conclusion that having a meeting could be
interesting. Now we need to figure out a date and location that works for
both clubs.
Date - I havent polled the MichLUG members, so people are going to have
express themselves here, but some dates that I guessed might work are listed
below. While I have listed dates on Saturdays, it is possible that a Sunday
would work as well.
May 1st
May 29th
June 5th
June 12th
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I think Id prefer to hold off until after MCCC, if possible, especially if
were going to hold this in lieu of a regular MichLUG meeting (May 1st, June
5th).
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Hi guys,
I have finaly received the parts ordered from BrickLink and I am about to finish
the third robot. But there is something interesting that I want to say first. I
have challenged myself on building a RIS only robot that will do the job. The
good news is I have succeded! I am using one motor for driving following the
line with the light sensor and the second motor to grab/lift the trash can. One
touch sensor detects the trash can and the other is detecting the arm position.
Cool, huh? It will not be able to U turn to pick the 6th can but it works! Now
Im going to work on my pneumatic-arm-double-spybots robot wich it turns out to
be a monster... I hope Ill get some time next week to finish them all!
Happy Easter for everybody!
Gabe
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In lugnet.org.us.lrgoaa, Jona Jeffords wrote:
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May 1 might make the most sense from our point of view because we will have
just finished the trash collecting event and could easily have our robots on
hand to show off.
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Cool. Those should be very interesting.
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As far as location goes, I wonder how many people typically show up for a
MichLUG meeting? We usually have 3-8 people at our monthly meetings and
usually slightly more for our events. Since I havent heard a word from any
of the members concerning this joint meeting, I would expect 2 to 3 memebrs
to show up. Holding it in Ann Arbor would make it more appealing to me and
more likely that I will actually be able to attend. There are a variety of
locations for us to meet at, but it sort of depends on the head count. The
most likely locations would be a) my house, b) Robs house, and c) the coffee
shop.
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We usually have 8-12 members (and 2-4 members kids) at a meeting.
As for a location, this was brought up a our meeting this past weekend and a few
people were going to look into it. If it is a possibility, would the Ypsilanti
public library be ok on your end?
Jason Spears | BrickCentral | MichLUG
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In lugnet.org.us.lrgoaa, Jason Spears wrote:
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Ok, so we sorta came to a conclusion that having a meeting could be
interesting. Now we need to figure out a date and location that works for
both clubs.
Date - I havent polled the MichLUG members, so people are going to have
express themselves here, but some dates that I guessed might work are listed
below. While I have listed dates on Saturdays, it is possible that a Sunday
would work as well.
May 1st
May 29th
June 5th
June 12th
Location - Im not sure that we would be able to find seating at a coffe
shop, but there may be other options in the general Ann Arbor area. (I think
that something nearish to Ann Arbor might work as a location, as we have lots
of members on that side of the state.)
Anyways, does anyone have any suggestions?
Jason Spears | BrickCentral | MichLUG
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May 1 might make the most sense from our point of view because we will have just
finished the trash collecting event and could easily have our robots on hand to
show off.
As far as location goes, I wonder how many people typically show up for a
MichLUG meeting? We usually have 3-8 people at our monthly meetings and usually
slightly more for our events. Since I havent heard a word form any of the
members concerning this joint meeting, I would expect 2 to 3 memebrs to show up.
Holding it in Ann Arbor would make it more appealing to me and more likely that
I will actually be able to attend. There are a variety of locations for us to
meet at, but it sort of depends on the head count. The most likely locations
would be a) my house, b) Robs house, and c) the coffee shop.
Jona
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In lugnet.org.us.lrgoaa, Jason Spears wrote:
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Ok, so we sorta came to a conclusion that having a meeting could be
interesting. Now we need to figure out a date and location that works for
both clubs.
Date - I havent polled the MichLUG members, so people are going to have
express themselves here, but some dates that I guessed might work are listed
below. While I have listed dates on Saturdays, it is possible that a Sunday
would work as well.
May 1st
May 29th
June 5th
June 12th
Location - Im not sure that we would be able to find seating at a coffe
shop, but there may be other options in the general Ann Arbor area. (I think
that something nearish to Ann Arbor might work as a location, as we have lots
of members on that side of the state.)
Anyways, does anyone have any suggestions?
Jason Spears | BrickCentral | MichLUG
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Probably any dates are good with me.
Presumably Spencers might work .. but I cant volunteer someone elses house.
I have an RCX 2.0 and I am interested in (safely?) hacking in a dc supply
connector. Not sure this is something that might be discussed, at least the
how-tos... as presumably the robots are mostly mobile? perhaps I presume too
much. My interests are relatively diverse within lego and beyond and I just
dont seem to have the time to devote to mindstorms. Eventually I will do more,
but it is geared towards train layout automation. Not just train operation
themselves, but other accesories and possibly some accessories triggered by...
the audience? Just thinking out loud. I am curious about use of home brew
sensors like the reed switches and use of LED lighting features I know there
are web resources, books and so forth, but sometimes this stuff if much more
inspirational to see live or discuss with someone that has done it.
Ken
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Im interested in meeting. At this moment I dont have anything personal of
robotics interest to show... I have a couple different line following programs
from high school AP Computer Science students in robots of my creation... but
nothing outstanding there.
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May 1st
May 29th
June 5th
June 12th
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Ann Arbor is good for me. Id be more interested in 5/1 or 6/12 at this point.
Peter
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Ok, so we sorta came to a conclusion that having a meeting could be
interesting. Now we need to figure out a date and location that works for both
clubs.
Date - I havent polled the MichLUG members, so people are going to have
express themselves here, but some dates that I guessed might work are listed
below. While I have listed dates on Saturdays, it is possible that a Sunday
would work as well.
May 1st
May 29th
June 5th
June 12th
Location - Im not sure that we would be able to find seating at a coffe shop,
but there may be other options in the general Ann Arbor area. (I think that
something nearish to Ann Arbor might work as a location, as we have lots of
members on that side of the state.)
Anyways, does anyone have any suggestions?
Jason Spears | BrickCentral | MichLUG
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In lugnet.org.us.lrgoaa, Steve Hassenplug wrote:
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Ive made a couple trips to IndyLUG meetings, expecting a cold responce from
from the train guys, only to be very welcome by other AFoLs.
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Based on the general atmosphere regarding BIONICLE on LUGNET about a year ago, I
didnt expect a warm reception at my first MichLUG meeting either, but I was
pleasantly surprised (my one big complaint was the fact that its quite possibly
the biggest meeting that Ive attended, so I felt a bit lost in the crowd
sometimes). Chris still gives me a little grief over my chosen theme, but Im
going to get revenge on him by slipping a MOC with some BIONICLE parts into a
Train display one of these days. >:)
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Turns out, most of them have Mindstorms, but a lot are still in the box. I
guess most of them dont know how to build a robot. :)
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Ive bought a couple sets myself, but not the RIS. I got the two Star Wars kits
because they were Star Wars, and I got two of the expansion packs and three
Spybots for specific TECHNIC parts. My hangup on getting in MINDSTORMS stems
from my preference for form over function, the cost of building up the necessary
components from scratch (vs. what I already spend on other themes), and a
current low level of interest in learning how to program for RCX. I have an
idea for using a microscout that might require jumping that last hurdle,
provided it will actually work (do you happen to know if its possible to keep
it running a single program indefinitely, or will it always go into standby mode
after a while?).
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In lugnet.org.us.lrgoaa, Jona Jeffords wrote:
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Okay, well that is good to know. This exchange coupled with the previous one
that happened on our forum made me think that was the intent. Sorry if I
mis-read you.
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Without the benefit of knowing what was said in your forum (or who said it), we
cant really comment on what might have been brought up there. Presently,
however, despite any ability MichLUG might have to incorporate outside Special
Interest Groups, I think it would be a lot less painless for SIGs to be formed
from within MichLUG rather than trying to merge with existing groups, where
youll potentially have to deal with conflicting charters, having one set of
leadership give way for the other, and a lack of cross-over membership to help
bind the two groups together. I mean, if LRGOAA members just want to
participate in robotics competitions, what good would it do to force you guys to
travel all over Michigan and adjust to our schedule for meetings when youre
doing fine on your own? Im guessing about as much as forcing us to always meet
in the Detroit area and adjust our schedules to yours just so we can incorporate
robotics competition discussions into our meetings, which are quite busy as it
is.
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I think that the 2 groups use their meetings for very different things.
Actually, I think the 2 groups are quite different from eachother on a
fundemental level. From what Larry and you have said, I gather that there is
a huge social component to the MichLug and its meetings/shows.
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Pretty much. We mostly try to limit our fighting to the official business
portion of the meetings. :)
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It sounds like much of the time spent together is spent being together
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Not to the extent that we just hang out and talk with each other, but in regards
to our LEGO interest, yes. A lot more of the general chatting seems to happen
at the shows, but thats to be expected when you spend about a couple days
hanging out with the same group of people for a single event.
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Additionally, there seems to be a desire to promote LEGO as a worhtwhile
hobby, which might be the actual focus o several of your shows.
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Its a focus, but not the only one. Personal enjoyment is one of the big
reasons, and I dont think any one of us would be doing it if we didnt enjoy
it. And theres also the charity aspect, where some shows are done to raise
money for worthy causes.
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So far, LRGoAA has been about robotics challenges and competitions which
happen to use LEGO as the medium of choice (for several reasons most of
which I am sure you all know and agree with).
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Well, unless you start doing stuff like Robot Wars. Punching a big gaping hole
through an RCX would be a tragedy of the highest order, especially if its a 1.0
model.
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Our meetings are somewhat brief, 2 to 3 hours max and they occur at night in
the middle of the week at a local, bust coffee shop.
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Ah, thats the advantage of having a membership thats centrally located. Weve
got active members in the Chicago area, Indiana, Ohio, Canada, and at least half
a dozen spread pretty far apart in western Michigan. Its nice to have the
meeting last longer than the travel time required to attend, so Saturday is
pretty much the only option.
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In lugnet.org.us.lrgoaa, Jona Jeffords wrote:
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While I do realize that the current definition of robotics (especially in the
automotive capitol of the world) includes many things that are not commonly
thought of as robots, I also have to say that automating a train layout
with the RCX doesnt exactly convince me that the MichLug is about robotics
as you put it.
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MichLUG is about the LEGO experience in general, not any specific themes. Every
member brings something different to the table. Its not just about Space,
Castle, Pirates, BIONICLE, robotics, Sea Monkeys, sculpture, large-scale MOCs,
or any other specific area of interest, but all of those are themes that various
members have added to the collective whole.
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Furthermore, something of this nature, while interesting and impressive in
its own right, doesnt pique my interest.
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I wasnt really sure it would, which is why I also suggested setting up a
seperate table where robot competitions can be run. Honestly, I think that
would be a more appropriate format for LRGOAA to run with, since thats what
would be truly representative of what your organization does. If you guys
automated one of our layouts it would certainly be cool for us, but it wouldnt
really show people the essence of LRGOAA.
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The fundamental problem is that I have no interest in trains (LEGO or non-
LEGO) and so while it may be a fun thing to attend another groups meeting,
I fear I would have a tough time justifying the action to myself and my
family.
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Despite the fact that the majority of shows are devoted to the Train/Town combo,
the MOCs displayed at meetings that Ive attended (starting last May) have not
been at all Train-centric. Not counting my large backlog of BIONICLE-based
MOCs, Space seemed to be represented the most, followed by Castle. I probably
have about as much interest in building Train stuff as you, but I also know that
the Train shows put money in the Club account that allows us to do things that
might be of significantly more interest to me. Noone is required to participate
in any given event (except, arguably, the person who volunteered to be Straw
Boss), so its all fine with me. Besides, this wasnt about getting LRGOAA to
join MichLUG as a junior organization, but about getting the two groups to
interact as equals.
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I can see myself attending a MichLug meeting if I was bringing a robot to
show-off and maybe solicit new participants to our events.
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I dont think anyone would expect otherwise. We can both show our stuff to the
public, but they rarely, if ever, have anything to show back. Part of the
benefit of meeting each other would be for each group to see what the other
group does.
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Additionally, any benefit that the MichLug would have by adding us to its
roster of sub-groups can easily be achieved by those members who have
robotics interest to start coming to our meetings.
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Thats not necessarily true. Doing so would not immediately increase our
collective resource pool, and while any MichLUG members who chose to do so would
probably learn a lot of new techniques, it wouldnt be the same as having the
level of knowledge and experience present within LRGOAA added to what we already
have. However, as has already been stated, MichLUG isnt out to absorb
LRGOAA. We just want to hang out with each other sometime. Maybe some MichLUG
members might want to join LRGOAA, and maybe some LRGOAA members might want to
join MichLUG. Either way, both groups stand to benefit from any cross-group
participation.
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Right. And from what Jason is saying in his post, it sounds like he was/is
looking to fill in some down-time that the MichLug has in the summer months.
This is a good thing for a group organizer to do, to be sure, but dont be
surprised when other groups are not jumping at the chance.
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Its a mild risk, to be sure, but not even asking pretty much guarantees that
reaction. :)
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Personally, I would challenge any of the MichLug members who have interest in
(or simply have) Mindstorms to come to our meetings and participate in one of
our challenges.
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Speaking just for myself, my interest at present is purely observational. Id
love to watch these sorts of events, but in addition to running a website, Ive
got at least 20 MOCs in various stages of completion as it is (and I seem to
come up with ideas faster than I can implement them), and its a 5-hour round
trip for me to get to the Detroit area. Honestly, Id have a lot more incentive
to attend if it was in conjunction with MichLUG rather than just me carting
myself across the mitten to watch by myself.
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Personally, I have about as much interest in building a lifelike train as Larry
has in building a sumo robot.
But that doesnt stop me from trying to attend any type of LEGO meeting (LUG,
LTC, MUG, LRG, Brickfest...)
Ive made a couple trips to IndyLUG meetings, expecting a cold responce from
from the train guys, only to be very welcome by other AFoLs. Turns out, most
of them have Mindstorms, but a lot are still in the box. I guess most of them
dont know how to build a robot. :)
Thats OK. I dont really want to build a 5 story building, a castle, a
moonbase module, or anything with Bionical parts. But, its pretty cool to see
what other people have done. My wife and boys love to see the layouts.
One of these days, Ill make the trip to attend an MichLUG meeting. Really, I
will... :)
Thanks for the invitation,
Steve
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In lugnet.org.us.lrgoaa, Larry Pieniazek wrote:
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I think I may still not have made myself completely clear. In my view as an
ex officer of the club, one of the principal bylaws authors, and as a general
student of community, the club as a whole has no desire to see LRGOAA become
a SIG within MichLUG, unless that desire is mutual, our members and yours.
Speaking just for myself, I personally would not want to see it, actually, at
least not at the present time, and if it were put to a vote, would vote
against it. But thats not what is being suggested here.
Thats not at all the same thing as doing joint meetings or joint
exhibitions. Thats all that was being asked... is there an interest in a
joint meeting, or in doing some shows together at some point if the proper
show presented itself. Nor is it the same thing as feeling that one club
excludes the other, which is a sense Im getting from you from some previous
posts.
Im not going to argue about whether layout automation is robotics or not, or
what makes a valid use of the RCX. My bringing it up was to contrast with
your statement that we have no robotics interest. It may not be the kind
youre interested in, which is fine, but its nevertheless robotics.
We have robotics interest because people (members) introduced it to us. We
also (as a club) didnt have any gaming interest, until members introduced it
to us, and now we play BrickQuest or Evil Stevies on a semi regular basis.
We also didnt have any people interested in set drafting, until it was
introduced to us by members. Now we draft just about every meeting. Ditto for
castle exhibitions, ditto for space, stuff like the moonbase standard...
close to 1/2 of our shows now are not purely train but have other components.
We have a very impressive collection of moonbase modules now.
But, yes, we do a lot of train shows. Many train shows, frankly, are money
makers for us, and doing train shows enables our club to do other things we
want to do, like Festival of Trees, and other money losing or charity events.
So we probably will keep doing them. Besides, some of us enjoy interacting
with hundreds or thousands of people, and spreading the word about how neat
LEGO is. Trains are a good gateway to bring people into the hobby, everyone
understands them, and theyre in my view more accessible than many other
facets are.
I think its actually great that you find trains (almost) as boring and
uninteresting as I find sumo competitions, because if we in the overall hobby
all liked the same things it wouldnt be nearly as rich of a hobby as it is.
That said, we need to work to understand and accept the interests of others
rather than being dismissive of them. Not that you necessarily are, but some
of your posts do leave the impression that you think others might be.
++Lar
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We could go back and forth all day with this discussion, but the bottom line is
that your group is very different from my group. An event of some sort that
brought the 2 groups together would be interesting and might be fun. Ill leave
it Jason to suggest the specifics of such an event.
Jona
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In lugnet.org.us.lrgoaa, Jason Spears wrote:
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No one is trying to glom LRGOAA under the umbrella of MichLUG. LRGOAA is its
own entity, doing its own thing. I was just trying to arrange a meeting.
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Okay, well that is good to know. This exchange coupled with the previous one
that happened on our forum made me think that was the intent. Sorry if I
mis-read you.
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Maybe I phrased something wrong in another email. MichLUG is likely to have
a May meeting. You mentioned that LRGOAA will be having a May meeting. I
thought that if the schedules worked out we might be able to have both
meetings on the same day in the same place.
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I think that the 2 groups use their meetings for very different things.
Actually, I think the 2 groups are quite different from eachother on a
fundemental level. From what Larry and you have said, I gather that there is a
huge social component to the MichLug and its meetings/shows. It sounds like much
of the time spent together is spent being together (which is what communities of
like minded people tend to do). Additionally, there seems to be a desire to
promote LEGO as a worhtwhile hobby, which might be the actual focus o several of
your shows. So far, LRGoAA has been about robotics challenges and competitions
which happen to use LEGO as the medium of choice (for several reasons most of
which I am sure you all know and agree with). We have recently added a monthly
meeting because some members didnt want to wait so long between events to do
challenges. Our meetings are typically all about the upcoming event, the rules
are discussed, different aspects of the challenge are discussed, we bring in
prototypes of our ideas to show-off and get feedback on. Our meetings are
somewhat brief, 2 to 3 hours max and they occur at night in the middle of the
week at a local, bust coffee shop. They are not necessarily ideal for a joint
meeting between the groups.
If there were to be a joint meeting between the groups (beyond what I suggested
in my previous post, i.e. interested members of either group showing up at
meetings of both groups), it seems to me that it might be best if MichLug
invited LRGoAA to come to a meeting and to present a specific thing.
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I looked over your site and couldnt see any info on the exact date & place
of the May meeting. Am I looking in the wrong spot?
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Our event calendar is found on this page:
http://www.24tooth.com/FutureEvents.php, and specifically the May meeting is
found here: http://www.24tooth.com/FutureEvents.php#MayMeeting.
Jona
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In lugnet.org.us.lrgoaa, Jona Jeffords wrote:
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I can see myself attending a MichLug meeting if I was bringing a robot to
show-off and maybe solicit new participants to our events. I can not see
myself attending a MichLug meeting because I like to discuss trains and towns
and LEGO in general or with the overall intent of my group becoming a
sub-group of the MichLug. I feel our focus is specific and to get glommed on
to an umbrella group would dilute our identity. Additionally, any benefit
that the MichLug would have by adding us to its roster of sub-groups can
easily be achieved by those members who have robotics interest to start
coming to our meetings.
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No one is trying to glom LRGOAA under the umbrella of MichLUG. LRGOAA is its
own entity, doing its own thing. I was just trying to arrange a meeting.
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Right. And from what Jason is saying in his post, it sounds like he was/is
looking to fill in some down-time that the MichLug has in the summer months.
This is a good thing for a group organizer to do, to be sure, but dont be
surprised when other groups are not jumping at the chance.
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Maybe I phrased something wrong in another email. MichLUG is likely to have a
May meeting. You mentioned that LRGOAA will be having a May meeting. I thought
that if the schedules worked out we might be able to have both meetings on the
same day in the same place. I wasnt trying to fill in some down-time so to
speak, but rather the summer months have more leway in moving a meeting that we
would in Decemeber. I have found talking with other LEGO fans to be fun and
interesting. If LRGOAA isnt interested, then I guess it wont happen.
As for other groups not jumping at the chance, I guess we will have to see, as I
will be contact those groups soon.
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If you cant wait until September, you can attend our next event which is on
Saturday, April 17th. We will be attempting an automated trash collection
challenge put forth by one of our members. In this challenge, the robots need
to negotiate the route (LEGO road baseplates) and when they detect a trash
bin, empty its contents into themselves. For all of the event details see
this page: http://www.24tooth.com/CurrentEvent.html. The rules are now
official and we expect 4 or so robots (that I currently am aware of).
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The challange sounds pretty neat.
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Following this we will be having our normal monthly meetings (May and June)
and another event in July. The challenge for the July event hasnt been
decided on yet so if you are interested, you can put your 2 cents worth in at
the meetings.
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I looked over your site and couldnt see any info on the exact date & place of
the May meeting. Am I looking in the wrong spot?
Jason Spears | BrickCentral | MichLUG
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I think I may still not have made myself completely clear. In my view as an ex
officer of the club, one of the principal bylaws authors, and as a general
student of community, the club as a whole has no desire to see LRGOAA become a
SIG within MichLUG, unless that desire is mutual, our members and yours.
Speaking just for myself, I personally would not want to see it, actually, at
least not at the present time, and if it were put to a vote, would vote against
it. But thats not what is being suggested here.
Thats not at all the same thing as doing joint meetings or joint exhibitions.
Thats all that was being asked... is there an interest in a joint meeting, or
in doing some shows together at some point if the proper show presented itself.
Nor is it the same thing as feeling that one club excludes the other, which is a
sense Im getting from you from some previous posts.
Im not going to argue about whether layout automation is robotics or not, or
what makes a valid use of the RCX. My bringing it up was to contrast with your
statement that we have no robotics interest. It may not be the kind youre
interested in, which is fine, but its nevertheless robotics.
We have robotics interest because people (members) introduced it to us. We also
(as a club) didnt have any gaming interest, until members introduced it to us,
and now we play BrickQuest or Evil Stevies on a semi regular basis. We also
didnt have any people interested in set drafting, until it was introduced to us
by members. Now we draft just about every meeting. Ditto for castle exhibitions,
ditto for space, stuff like the moonbase standard... close to 1/2 of our shows
now are not purely train but have other components. We have a very impressive
collection of moonbase modules now.
But, yes, we do a lot of train shows. Many train shows, frankly, are money
makers for us, and doing train shows enables our club to do other things we want
to do, like Festival of Trees, and other money losing or charity events. So we
probably will keep doing them. Besides, some of us enjoy interacting with
hundreds or thousands of people, and spreading the word about how neat LEGO is.
Trains are a good gateway to bring people into the hobby, everyone understands
them, and theyre in my view more accessible than many other facets are.
I think its actually great that you find trains (almost) as boring and
uninteresting as I find sumo competitions, because if we in the overall hobby
all liked the same things it wouldnt be nearly as rich of a hobby as it is.
That said, we need to work to understand and accept the interests of others
rather than being dismissive of them. Not that you necessarily are, but some of
your posts do leave the impression that you think others might be.
++Lar
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In lugnet.org.us.lrgoaa, Larry Pieniazek wrote:
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could be, and *have been*, since way back when, actually. 2001 I think.
Weve (well, our resident robotics wizard, Steve Ringe has) been using RCXs
and other Technic gadgetry for doing things like turntable automation (press
a button on the remote and the table indexes to the next track position, then
locks into place so the track is perfectly aligned, press another one and it
moves back the other way) streetcar automation (have a linear track with no
bumpers at the ends, streetcar trips a sensor and stops at the station, then
reverses, travels to the other station, repeat over and over) and even,
believe it or not, radio controlled trains. (take an RC unit, and use it to
drive the throttle. Now your handheld RC controller is wirelessly controlling
the speed!)
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SNIP
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In another thread, Jasons given a pretty good overview of the history of the
club. I hope you, Jona, will get over your perception that were not about
robotics. Robotics is more than just robots. And our club is about more than
PD realises, because, as he said, hes new, and as youll learn if you talk
to him for any period of time, hes pretty Bionicle centric and not very
aware of what else goes on around him. Not that thats a bad thing,
necessarily, unless it gets in the way of realising whats actually going on.
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While I do realize that the current definition of robotics (especially in the
automotive capitol of the world) includes many things that are not commonly
thought of as robots, I also have to say that automating a train layout with
the RCX doesnt exactly convince me that the MichLug is about robotics as you
put it. Furthermore, something of this nature, while interesting and impressive
in its own right, doesnt pique my interest. The fundamental problem is that
I have no interest in trains (LEGO or non-LEGO) and so while it may be a fun
thing to attend another groups meeting, I fear I would have a tough time
justifying the action to myself and my family. I think what Jason says
in a separate post about meaning to
visit other groups, but never actually getting around to it rings very true.
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Id love to do a joint meeting some time, or just have you or other LRGOAA
members come to one of ours. We do a LOT more than just plan shows at our
meetings.
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I can see myself attending a MichLug meeting if I was bringing a robot to
show-off and maybe solicit new participants to our events. I can not see myself
attending a MichLug meeting because I like to discuss trains and towns and LEGO
in general or with the overall intent of my group becoming a sub-group of the
MichLug. I feel our focus is specific and to get glommed on to an umbrella group
would dilute our identity. Additionally, any benefit that the MichLug would have
by adding us to its roster of sub-groups can easily be achieved by those members
who have robotics interest to start coming to our meetings.
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And, Jason is right. Theres no right or wrong organizational division or
whatever... if you have another club, thats great. Its a lot of work to
start and grow a club, so hats off to you!
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Right. And from what Jason is saying in his post, it sounds like he was/is
looking to fill in some down-time that the MichLug has in the summer months.
This is a good thing for a group organizer to do, to be sure, but dont be
surprised when other groups are not jumping at the chance.
Personally, I would challenge any of the MichLug members who have interest in
(or simply have) Mindstorms to come to our meetings and participate in one of
our challenges. In fact, coming up in September will be Sumo-bot 6 which is the
perfect chance for new comers to try something challenging but totally
achievable and to get submersed in the advanced technics that the more
experienced builders will be bringing. It is often said that sumo is an
excellent starting point for robot enthusiasts.
If you cant wait until September, you can attend our next event which is on
Saturday, April 17th. We will be attempting an automated trash collection
challenge put forth by one of our members. In this challenge, the robots need to
negotiate the route (LEGO road baseplates) and when they detect a trash bin,
empty its contents into themselves. For all of the event details see this page:
http://www.24tooth.com/CurrentEvent.html. The rules are now official and we
expect 4 or so robots (that I currently am aware of).
Following this we will be having our normal monthly meetings (May and June) and
another event in July. The challenge for the July event hasnt been decided on
yet so if you are interested, you can put your 2 cents worth in at the meetings.
Jona
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In lugnet.org.us.lrgoaa, David Laswell wrote:
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In lugnet.org.us.lrgoaa, Jona Jeffords wrote:
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I think the lack of theme crossover is another big reason we havent gotten
together in the past. Looking forward, I can imagine a show which has some
of our robots wandering around one of your layouts, or something similar.
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Im not sure thered be enough room to have fully functional robots actually
wandering around on an actual theme layout (especially ones with moving
trains that could get derailed), but I can think of two options that could
work. Robotics could be added to an existing layout to help automate certain
aspects of it
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could be, and *have been*, since way back when, actually. 2001 I think. Weve
(well, our resident robotics wizard, Steve Ringe has) been using RCXs and other
Technic gadgetry for doing things like turntable automation (press a button on
the remote and the table indexes to the next track position, then locks into
place so the track is perfectly aligned, press another one and it moves back the
other way) streetcar automation (have a linear track with no bumpers at the
ends, streetcar trips a sensor and stops at the station, then reverses, travels
to the other station, repeat over and over) and even, believe it or not, radio
controlled trains. (take an RC unit, and use it to drive the throttle. Now your
handheld RC controller is wirelessly controlling the speed!)
Our current area of exploration is into DCC. Several of us have DCC motors and
have been playing with various control systems. Im probably going to stick to
the Mark Riley RCX/DCC approach but others have went out and bought Digitrax.
In another thread, Jasons given a pretty good overview of the history of the
club. I hope you, Jona, will get over your perception that were not about
robotics. Robotics is more than just robots. And our club is about more than PD
realises, because, as he said, hes new, and as youll learn if you talk to him
for any period of time, hes pretty Bionicle centric and not very aware of what
else goes on around him. Not that thats a bad thing, necessarily, unless it
gets in the way of realising whats actually going on.
Id love to do a joint meeting some time, or just have you or other LRGOAA
members come to one of ours. We do a LOT more than just plan shows at our
meetings.
And, Jason is right. Theres no right or wrong organizational division or
whatever... if you have another club, thats great. Its a lot of work to start
and grow a club, so hats off to you!
++Lar
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