Subject:
|
March 22nd, 2008 SMART meeting at the LEGO store!
|
Newsgroups:
|
lugnet.org.us.smart
|
Date:
|
Sun, 2 Mar 2008 02:50:17 GMT
|
Viewed:
|
9009 times
|
| |
|
|
First, thanks to the people who showed up for our February meeting. Due to a
scheduling glitch, our regular meeting place turned out not to be available.
Those who showed up went to a nearby cafeteria to have our meeting. I hope that
there weren't any people who decided to come to the meeting real late because
sometime after 3pm we took the sign down telling where our new location was. The
racers are making very good progress, and several people brought prototype
Easter egg hunting robots. Thanks to everyone who showed up!
Our March meeting will be in Bellevue Square at the LEGO store. It's on the
first floor, near where the kid's tug boat used to be (sadly it's being taken
down very soon). Look on a mall map if you don't know where the store is.
We'll be doing a robotic Easter egg hunt for both our March meeting's
mini-challenge, as well as a display in the store. I would really like to see a
lot of robots there! So build a robot that can look for the chocolate Hershey
eggs <http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?i=1107948> and drop them
over the edge of the rectangular arena. The edge is about 2" high, but make sure
your robot can handle an edge at least 2 1/4". There will likely be one or two
buildings on the inside of the arena. These buildings will be much higher than
the wall, you can tell a building by its height. The floor surface will be
white, so if your robot needs to be able to find eggs, that's one way to do it.
But there will be plenty of eggs scattered around, so if you just drive
randomly, you'll probably run into a bunch very soon. The edges are transparent.
Normally we leave the mini-challenges wide open to interpretation, but this time
I have two suggestions about what sort of robot to build. 1) Don't make it too
big, you'll want to be able to navigate easily, make it between the buildings
and walls, leave room for other robots, etc. 2) Try not to build a harvester --
a robot that scoops up a hundred or more eggs at once before depositing them
over the edge. Because it's also for a display, we're looking for robots that
are really cool to watch, and watch for a fair amount of time. :-) But other
than these to suggestions (not rules!) feel free to build whatever sort of robot
you wish.
Our official start time will be 10am. The robots will run from then until at
least 3pm and maybe 4pm or perhaps a little longer if there are still
significant numbers of eggs left. You don't need to be there the entire time,
but the longer your robot can be there, the better it will be. More robots to
choose from, more variety to see, and a chance for others to take a break.
Generally we'll have one or two robots running at the same time, while the
others take a rest. Perhaps during particulary busy times we'll put another
robot or two on the arena too. Every few minutes we'll switch out one of the
robots, though. So even if you can't be there the entire time, if you can drop
off robots in the morning, spend whatever part of the day you can afford to, and
then pick up your robot towards the end, that would be great! There will be
plenty of time for people who show up to wander around the mall, get something
to eat, etc.
I think this will be a really cool event! I highly encourage everyone to build a
robot and bring it to our meeting!
--
David Schilling
|
|
Message has 3 Replies:
4 Messages in This Thread:
  
- Entire Thread on One Page:
- Nested:
All | Brief | Compact | Dots
Linear:
All | Brief | Compact
|
|
|
|
