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Subject: 
Notes on the last and next SMART meeting
Newsgroups: 
lugnet.org.us.smart
Date: 
Wed, 31 Oct 2007 10:48:43 GMT
Viewed: 
7669 times
  
I wanted to thank all the teams that participated in the BrickHeap Wars
competition at Robothon last month. Besides a SMART team, we also had a local
company field a team, Steve Hassenplug came to participate, and we had an FLL
team as well. Everyone had a great time, and for the first time I didn't hear
pleas for more time! I have a write-up on LEGO's Mindstorm site. You can read
about it here: http://mindstorms.lego.com/news/ -- look for the Oct 30th entry.

SMART also had a terrific Crate Contraption display at Robothon and NWBrickCon.
Thanks to Gus Jansson, who heroically put the entire thing together himself this
time! I hope that we'll be able to read a write-up by Gus in the near future on
the layout and robots used.

The next SMART meeting will be November 17th, that's only a bit over two weeks
away! I still haven't received confirmation from DigiPen that the meeting can be
held there, so possibly we'll be meeting at a different location. Check the web
site for details a couple days before you leave.

There were two ideas for a mini-challenge that were proposed after the BrickHeap
Wars competition. Do either one, or bring some other robot that you've been
working on.

First: build a robot that can cross between two tables with a taunt rope between
them. The length of the rope is unknown ahead of time. But you should count on
it being a couple of feet at least. You should start your robot completely on
one table, and end up completely on the second table. If you want an extra
challenge, have your robot find the rope first. (It will be pulled over top of
both tables.)

Second: build a robot that can race around a gradient track. The track is
approximately 2 feet wide, and goes from completely black on the left side to
completely white on the right side. Have your robot try to stay at the same
level of gray-scale the entire time. We'll start with a simple oval track, but
perhaps we'll add a "T" later on. Since this will be hard to test without access
to a track, you can try printing a couple of pages of a gradient on an 8.5x11
sheet of paper, and tape them together. But also, try to write your program in
such a way that you can control the various aspects of how your robot drives.
Perhaps have parameters that you can set which specify the maximum speed of your
robot, how sensitive it should be, how much it should slow down in corners, and
so on.

See everyone in about two weeks!

--
  David Schilling



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