[srawn] SR(A)WN 2015 -- 10

[Tom Leese]

SR(A)WN 2015 — 10

This is the tenth issue of the Student Robotics (Almost) Weekly Newsletter, a (roughly) fortnightly newsletter which summarises the goings-on across SR. If you have feedback or think we've missed something, feel free to reply to this thread. Emboldened items are ones which we believe could do with extra hands. An absence of emboldening does not necessarily mean that everything is done.

• Kickstart happened. There were 24 teams in Southampton, 12 in London and 16 in Bristol. A news article went up within a day. The Kickstart in Munich is still pending, so the milestone is still open. An analysis thread is underway on the list, contributions would be welcomed.
• There has been a start on internal documentation for the software running on the brain board. The software stack was written up in summary, as was the WAMP protocol used for the tablet interface.
• A discussion about the logo and branding has been started.
• The SR tools, as of a Doing in Southampton last week, are being upgraded to setuptools and Python 3.
• For the teams that were not able to collect their kit at a Kickstart, couriering of kits is starting on Friday.
• Peter has proposed more learning-by-doings now that Kickstart is over.
• There is a discussion underway on the list about what to do with the v3 kit.
• Provisional dates for Southampton and Bristol tech days have been established. Additionally, the first tech day in Southampton has been finalised and is being announced to teams.
• The general move towards using pip and setuptools has continued with the competition software. Alistair is running a learning by doing about the topic.
• The doing on the 5th November happened and various gerrit patches were reviewed with intent to being merged.
• Planning for the 2015 competiton has begun, starting with some improvements to the competition software.

Since the competition year has begun, we will also post things the teams get up to in SRAWNs.

Teams:

• The first movement has been achieved by team CAT.

Thanks to Tom Leese and Alistair Lynn for working on this issue. The previous issue can be found here.

[Peter Law]

Hi,

> Kickstart happened. There were 24 teams in Southampton, 12 in London

Not sure how we're counting to 12 in London -- of the 10 kits shipped
there, 9 were handed out including one to a teacher who just picked up
a kit. That makes 8 teams by my count.

Peter

[Alistair Lynn]

Hi Peter–

> Not sure how we're counting to 12 in London -- of the 10 kits shipped
> there, 9 were handed out including one to a teacher who just picked up
> a kit. That makes 8 teams by my count.

A mild oversight, I think: those numbers include teams who Nak'd
attending the Kickstart they were assigned.

Alistair