[MiRobotClub] Reminder - Meeting Tonight 6PM Wednesday September 19th, 2018

[Paul Haas]

I have an idea for a robot demo. It's at the end of the message after the usual meeting announcement.

Meeting time/place: 6PM to 8PM Tonight MiRobotClub Meeting

Maker-Works

3765 Plaza Dr.

Ann Arbor, MI 48108

www.Maker-Works.com

Please try and attend and bring your ideas and any robot related project that you may be working on.

Lets make MiRobotClub the best Robotics Club in Michigan (working toward world domination one Bot at a time).  If you would like to present a talk or have an idea for a short talk, tutorial or demo, please let me know.

MiRobotClub demo:  Get rid of that dying smoke detector.

 

Inspired by real events. A smoke detector started chirping in the middle of the night. I thought wouldn't it be great if I had robots that could figure out which smoke detector was dying, knock it down, get it down stairs, and fling it out the cat door.

Model train hobbiests have their modular layouts, Lego hobbiests have modular Great Ball Contraptions, we need a modular display for robots. Preferably something that works with jeepbots and small 2 wheel Arduino robots.

In a modular train layout, a model train goes through each module. In a Lego GBC, the machines transfer Lego soccer balls in a loop. Since maker faire inspired events often apportion space in terms of rectangular tables. We could set something up that uses those tables for tabletop robots, and uses a space the size of a table or two for a big robot. Each robot would have to move the smoke detectors that are dropped into one side of their space over to the other, then push it up a ramp and on to the next robot.

The first robot would have a wall of smoke detectors. When one starts chirping, it can pull it down and pass it on to the next robot. The last robot should silence them.

Conveniently, the dozen smoke detectors in my house have reached the age where they need replacing. We could pull the real smoke detector guts out and put in wimpy noise makers and "strobe lights" that remind people of the ones used to alert the deaf, but not nearly so bright. An authenticly bright light would look horrible in a YouTube video.