Subject:
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Notes from the November 2001 SMART meeting
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.org.us.smart
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Date:
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Sun, 18 Nov 2001 04:56:05 GMT
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Viewed:
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1233 times
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Meeting Notes
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Today we had our last SMART meeting of the year. The first hour or so we
ran the sumo and puck gathering events with our improved robots. Some of
the improvements were very interesting, and also quite good. We also got to
meet some people who didn't participate in the Workshop 3D RCX Challenge,
and some of them brought robots as well!
We then had some time to discuss the robots, how we built them, what
improvements we made, how we programmed, them, etc. And we ran the line
tracking event again. It was good to meet some of the code-only people at
today's meeting as well.
Finally we discussed mini-challenges. There were a number of good, new
ideas, and we spent quite some time discussing a number of them. I'll write
up the new ideas and add them to the list (see the 'Next SMART Meeting' link
on our main page) in the next week or two. Up until now, our
mini-challenges haven't been competitive. Today's meeting had the sumo
event, which obviously was competitive. (The other two events were run in a
non-competitive way.) But we decided that occasionally we will allow
competitive mini-challenges. With that in mind, here is the mini-challenge
for our next meeting, (and first anniversary!) which incidently will be
January 26th, 2pm, at the Bellevue Regional Library, room 1.
Next Mini-Challenge
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DRAG RACING
Build a robot that races in a straight line, from the starting line, 8 feet,
to the finish line, but stops within 8 inches of the finish line. The
starting line and finish line will be marked with reflective tape. You will
have to go as straight as possible, as there are no markings indicating your
path. 8 inches after the finish line will be a second line (normal tape) -
if any part of your robot touches or crosses that line, you will be
disqualified for that run. We'll be racing at least two robots at a time.
Make sure you use program #1 on your RCX, since a remote control will be
used to start all the racers at the same time.
One additional rule that has been proposed is "Only LEGO rubber may touch
the ground". I think it might be okay to allow other elements as well, as
long as the robots don't damage or destroy the starting and finishing lines
in any way. But for now we'll stay with the "LEGO rubber only" rule. If
someone posts good reasons in the next few weeks (say by December 31st) for
why this restriction should be lifted, I'm willing to change it.
Note, that the distances are preliminary. We'll do a couple of tests to
make sure that this is appropriately challenging. The 8 inch stopping zone,
in particular, might change. There's also a possibly that the 8 foot racing
distance might be increased. We'll let you know as soon as possible.
--
David Schilling
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