Subject:
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Details of second SMART meeting and mini-challenge
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.org.us.smart
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Date:
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Fri, 9 Feb 2001 19:37:07 GMT
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Viewed:
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1041 times
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Sorry for the delay in not getting this out sooner.
Our next SMART meeting will take place on March 31st, at the Bellevue Public
Library, in room 1, at 2pm. This is the big room, so we won't have to turn
anyone away!
The mini challenge will be to:
"Design a robot that drives around on a rectangular table without falling
off. When it comes into contact with a heavy object, stop."
The heavy object at the meeting will be a black, 6x6x5 'cube' built out of
LEGO weight elements, and some plates, but anything will do. The table will
be whatever is available at the library.
Robustly detecting the edge of a table isn't a trivial task. Please don't
let the rest of this paragraph force you into a box as there are many other
solutions to this mini challenge, but one way to look at this one might be
as a prequel to building a robot for a sumo competion such as the one at the
last Workshop 3D competition. It requires cliff sensors of some sort, plus
a way of detecting collision with another object. With some additional
work, you should be able to turn this into a decent sumo-bot. (This isn't a
guarantee that there will be a sumo event at the next Workshop 3D
competition, however.)
Here's what we'll be doing at the second meeting:
1 Brief Introductions
2 Show and Tell
3 Mini challenge
4 Next mini challenge discussion and vote
For the last item, think about what are some good ideas for mini challenges.
We'll be making a list, and keeping it; at each meeting we'll offer the next
three or four ideas up for a vote, the winner being removed from the list
(it's what we'll work on for the next meeting), while the ones that didn't
win will be moved to the bottom of the list so that they'll have another
chance at some later time.
What are good ideas for mini challenges? For some examples, see this post:
http://news.lugnet.com/org/us/smart/?n=5 - note that the 'word limit' is a
guideline, not a rigid rule. Just as the descriptions are more guidelines
than rigid rules - be lenient in interpreting them - any robot that
satisfies the requirements is a good one.
A good mini challenge should be one that is:
a) something that can be stated succinctly
b) something that can be done by kids or those with little experience
c) something that can be challenging if you want to do a really good job
d) something that requires a bit of hardware ingenuity, as well as requires
programming to do
If you think of ideas ahead of time, write them down. There's nothing more
frustrating than having had a good idea, but not being able to remember it!
Looking forward to seeing everyone there again, as well as some new faces!
--
David Schilling
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