04/2005:

In attendance:

Peter Campbell
Tom Spaulding
Brian Blalock
Paul Peterson
Trevor Clark
Roy Birnbrook
Brendo Birnbrook (wife)
Kayleen Birnbrook (daughter)
Bruce Stott
Mike Dvorsky

Paul Peterson is continuing to call libraries and schools. The libraries targeted are Peoria and the surrounding cities. The schools targeted are middle and high schools around District 150. CIRC is offering a free 1-year subscription in order to educate people of all ages and to promote interest and awareness in the field of hobby robotics. Initial rounds of calls were made. Several were enthusiastic and accepted immediately; others were only interested once they learned it was ‘free’; a few were not interested; others were not available and will need to be re-contacted or will return a message. A rare few asked for a sample of the magazine before making a decision.

Paul Peterson will provide Peter Campbell with a list of library and school addresses of the libraries and schools interested in a SERVO subscription.

Brian is making CDs of the images and videos taken of last year’s competition. The CDs will go in the archives kept by our Librarian. The contents of the CD may appear on the CIRC Website depending on space.

Roy suggested archiving old videos and images from the website onto a CD in order to free up space for the most up-to-date media.

Roy inquired on the status of any new solder classes or participants.

Roy brainstormed ideas for future Lego races and challenges:
- Line following tracks
- Staying within an oval track set by outer and inner boundaries
- Maze navigation
- Firefighting (detect and put out a candle in a maze)
- Using both Lego and non-Lego type robots

Bruce talked about another club’s Lego racing.

Bruce brought the FIRST Lego league rules from 2004. We will use them as a guide for our LEGO races. The 2005 rules have not been released yet.

Tom went to an RC Combat robot competition in New Orleans. In addition to RC combat, there was autonomous Ant Class combat. (The autonomous robots had emergency shutdown for obvious safety reasons.)

Peter printed new fliers announcing next month’s meeting time and place.

Peter talked about Sam Kherot’s lecture on the DARPA Grand Challenge. The lecture took place at Caterpillar.

Peter announced that Dean Kamen will give a lecture at the Discovery Forum 2005, held April 29th at the Civic Center Auditorium. Dean Kamen is the inventor of the Segway self-balancing human transporter, the inventor of the iBot wheelchair / mobility system, and the founder of FIRST.

Bruce brought an oval track with outer and inner boundaries. Bruce and Peter raced their LEGO robots on the track, while attempting to stay in the space between the concentric oval boundaries.