Greetings,

It's been awhile, but i've been working on a few things. The robotics club has been getting off the ground, and I had to work on some other tasks such as the website, making flyers, posting in different places, promoting, etc. Also been working on finding a better place to meet. There aren't many people in the club at this time, eventhough some have shown interest in the past, but interest has dwindled. Therefore, more promotions and leg work are needed. In time, we will build our membership, and the new location may also be better exposure.

I've also been helping a member getting parts, to build a robot chassis. He has a Basic Stamp Board, and is starting to learn, and doing some experiments.

I ordered some samples for the club from Atmel in their AVR microcontroller line. I have been using these for about 2-3 yrs now, and I enjoy working with them for their free tools, ease of use, and features. So I will also put together some workshops/tutorials for the club, on how to use these controllers.

Progress in terms of actual hands-on work, on UltraMega has halted for the moment, however I have been doing research on fuzzy logic and neural networks. Very interesting stuff, and I'm excited in implementing these algorithms for UltraMega. More about that another time.

On the other hand, I've been working on a sort of promotional robot called "HyperBot", for kids who may be interested in the robotics club. There are some pics in the club gallery showing its current state, however, I am currently working on the AVR controller. I will probably add a project page on this site. More about this another time.

Any ways, I'll update again real soon...

- robotvibes

Greetings,

I have been involved in starting up a local robotics club, South Florida Robotics Society (Sunbots). The website is basic right now, but will be updated real soon.

We had a meeting last week, and it was good. I was expecting more people to show up, but 3 of us got together and did a show and tell of projects, skills, and vision of the club. Some passers by seemed interested, I explained what we're doing, and then signed them up for more info.

The meeting was held in the parking lot of a local RC Hobby shop, and they had a race later that day, so they were on the track(parking lot) practicing. It was noisy and irritating after awhile, eventhough we didn't want to leave so we can continue talking about robotics.

We are trying to find a place we're we can hold the meetings, and also to begin working on our projects like 'Robot Builder's Day/Night Out' (RBNO/RBDO), similar to what other clubs are doing. We will be doing more promotions including flyers, reaching out to the public for more interest, like a membership drive.

We concluded that I will be the President (acting), for now, and they will have other roles.

We are planning on having another meeting maybe this wknd, and another next wk. Will keep you posted, and if anyone's interested, you may contact us at our website.

- robotvibes

Greetings,

I made some modifications to UltraMega's batteries, hardware, and some coding. More details on my site.

Thanks!

- Kevin

I have been working on the code for UltraMega, and had to make some changes. Some statements were deprecated in the latest build of the WinAVR/GCC Compiler, so the code had to be revised for those issues.

You can read more on my site: RobotVibes

Thanks!

- Kevin

I have added some pics in the UltraMega Gallery. There is a few older pics included, and they show UltraMega during its earlier stages. I was experimenting with some threaded rods to add height to UltraMega, and they seem to work fine. I decided on using 12" rods, as 24" would be too tall and would render the robot unstable. There are 2 decks prepared and will be added, where other modules will be located.

Since the motor controller is connected, simple testing yielded successful results. So next, I will be working on reconnecting the IR sensors, and then the bump sensors. I need to get these tasks completed, and get working on other higher level tasks. Later!

- robotvibes