Mar.20,2005	SciTech exhibit Logbook is now online - see our work
Mar.10,2005	Meeting Agenda for next meeting on Sat. Apr.2nd
Mar. 6,2005	Highlights from the last meeting The second meeting of our new Pittsburgh Robotics Society, on March 5th, got several of us local robot enthusiasts all tingly with excitement (well, * I * was tingly - the others can speak for their own sensations!).  If you weren't there, you should have been - we had a 100% increase in attendees, an awesomely cool video presentation, actual robots, and free muffins! Have you ever seen a humanoid fighting robot bend forward to a handstand, continue into a backwards double foot blow to the opponent's head, then flip back to upright while the fallen adversary twitches on the mat?  We did!  Folks, I'm talking about the robotic version of professional wrestling, and it's big stuff in Japan.  It's exciting, comical, and jaw-dropping, all at once.  Called Robo-One, these contests make Battlebots look ho-hum in comparison.  We saw plenty of examples at the meeting, thanks to a video presentation of humanoids and other walking bipeds put together by our leader, Dan Roganti.  Dan must have really burned the midnight oil to find so many different cool clips on the Web.  Aside from Robo-One competitors, we saw Honda's latest Asimo, various experimental walkers, and Mark Tilden explaining some of the secrets of his popular RoboSapien.  Like Dan, I have a particular interest in bipeds.  I was so inspired by the show, I wanted to rush home and fire up my lathe and soldering iron right away, and build something!  We also got a glimpse - photos only so far - of Dan's own biped inventions! Dan also showed off the two mini-sumo robot kits recently donated by our first club sponsor, Parallax.  He already had one SumoBot assembled.  It looks real good - nice clean lines, solid engineering. They'll get put to work in our SciTech Spectacular exhibit this fall (after club members play with them awhile!).  Thanks go to Parallax for this encouraging and valuable donation. And the free muffins - they were courtesy of Dan. Dan's doing a bang-up job getting PRS off the ground, but a good club is more than its founder.  We also had Bob Greene at the meeting, who got started in robotics a while back as a father-son activity.  His son's interests have since shifted to game programming, but Bob must have been bit bad by the "building-beasties" bug, because he's still doing it!  Bob counts amateur radio among his tech cred, but credits the "Amateur Robotics Notebook" column in Nuts & Volts magazine as being the inspiration for bringing him into robotics. And who authored that column?  None other than our own Bob Nansel, a genuine robotics guru, who looks every bit the part.  Just as at our first meeting, Bob regaled us from his trove of robotic lore, including his true tale of "The Adventure of the Camping Trip Robot Construction." Whatever the robotics topic, Bob has something interesting to add. Mike Timko, an IT systems administrator from Washington, PA, was there with his unbelievable nano robot.  Based on the MegaBitty controller and incredibly dinky gearmotors from Solarbotics, it's a complete working robot - computer, sensors, drivers, battery, motors, geartrains, wheels - in a little cube about an inch on a side.  Holy miniaturization, Batman! - one entire planetary gear reducer in that bot is smaller than just a single gear bushing in a more typically-sized robot. Also in attendance was John Leimgruber, who moved to the area recently from Indiana (the state, not the town!).  John's a Pittsburgh newcomer, but not a robotics newbie; he was into the robotics club scene back there in the midwest.  John helped Mike unpuzzle a programming conundrum in the nanobot, and shared some insider knowledge of the Martian rovers, picked up during his summer job at JPL! Sorry you weren't there?  Dan has posted some meeting pics on the club website, at: http://pghrobot.home.comcast.net/pics2005.03.05.html (sorry, no muffin shots) If you like robots, you should grab your calendar right now and circle Saturday, April 2, then write in "PRS robot club, Northland Public Library, 12-3."  That's the place to be, whether you're new and need tips on getting started, or you're an old hand who'd like to show your mechanical "babies" to somebody more appreciative than your spouse or dog. So be there in April. Oh, did I mention the free muffins? --Jeff Rice Photos from the last meeting are located here. Minutes from the last Meeting are available here  -- Dan
Mar 3, 2005	Hey Everyone, I just received the Sumo Robots that were donated by Parallax. We have two of them for the exhibit for the Science Center this fall. I'll bring them to the Meeting this saturday for all to see. They are based on the Mini Sumo Robot regulations. If anyone else has Mini-Sumo robots that they like to bring to the exhibit, your very much welcome to and let everyone see. Now we have to work on getting the sumo arena built. I talked to the coordinator at the Science center about the exhibit. We will have to make a floorplan of the booth to show her. This is something to discuss also at the meeting. --Dan