[srawn] SR(A)WN 2015 -- 8

[Tom Leese]

SR(A)WN 2015 — 8

This is the eighth 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.

• 53 teams are now signed up for the competition; two teams have unfortunately dropped out already.
• Creation of accounts before Kickstart has worked out well.
• The server has been moved over to a more powerful Linode VPS called 'saffron' — Rob won a doughnut for correctly guessing the server naming scheme, which was Firefly!
• A discussion on electrical safety has been started on the list and progress will continue in atrac ticket.
• Student Robotics was mentioned in a recently edition of The Daily Telegraph.
• Bristol and Southampton held their Newbie Doings for this year:
  • Southampton: We had cake! To make entry to mentoring easier we are trying a new concept: assign personal tutor to newbie.
  • Bristol: Large turnout at the newbie Doing.
• Peter proposed a number of ways to get better publicity, including organising the news better.
• First cuts of the videos produced by Olly during Smallpeice are available at their respective trac tickets: State Machines, Inputs, Program Design and Debugging.
• SR testing: Southampton spent the last doings developing test scripts for cameras, motor boards and ruggueduinos; these scripts are now all functioning and testing with them will finish soon.
• Batteries are being tested and recharged ready for shipping.
• Assembly of new boards into cases has started in Oxford.
• Alistair, Giorgos and Lilafisch are getting the micro games finished and Giorgos will announce a doing for assembling the bits that need to go to the different Kickstarts, instructions for blueshirts are being written.
• Chris K is making progress on the rules, please help by reviewing.
• The trac milestone for Kickstart is rather empty, please help by filling in what is missing!

Thanks to everyone who turned up at the doing yesterday for contributing (apologies for being unable to name people directly). The previous issue can be found here.

[Olly Smith]

On Thursday, October 9, 2014 1:16:55 PM UTC+1, Tom Leese wrote:

• Bristol and Southampton held their Newbie Doings for this year:
  • Southampton: We had cake! To make entry to mentoring easier we are trying a new concept: assign personal tutor to newbie.

YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 

• Peter proposed a number of ways to get better publicity, including organising the news better.

After I get the Kickstart videos out of the way, this is something i'm going to work on. 

• First cuts of the videos produced by Olly during Smallpeice are available at their respective trac tickets: State Machines, Inputs, Program Design and Debugging.

Yup, all fine here, move along. 

Again massive thanks to all who make these SRAWN's happen. I've been out of the loop for a while, and reading this is a huge help to stay on top of what's happening.