Our July 2026 *IN PERSON* RSSC Meetup @ CSULB!

[Alan Timm]

Our Monthly Meetup @ CSULB!

Please join us this Saturday July 11th at 10:00 am for our next *in person* Meetup!

​
Plug 1331 Palo Verde Ave, Long Beach, CA into your GPS and google will take you right to the front door.  :-)

Here's what's on the agenda...

9:30 am: The Doors open. Stop by early and say hi! Or log in early to make sure your mic works. We'll be here.

9:45 am: Business meeting

10:00 am Alfie Rebuilt: Hardware Update, New Modules & Systems Integration!

Alfie's back together and better than ever. This weekend, get an inside look at Part 2 of the rebuild — new hardware modules, fresh wiring, and the real work of getting everything talking to each other as one integrated system. If you're into robotics, embedded electronics, or just want to see what it takes to bring a robot back from the bench to fully operational, come check it out!
(Alan)

11:00 am Giving Orange a Voice: Rebuilding Wake Word & Speech Recognition for Low-Power Robotics!

Orange's original wake word system just got desupported for hobbyists — so it's time for a rebuild. This talk covers swapping in OpenWakeWord for wake detection, updating the local Vosk speech-to-text language graph, and the real tradeoffs behind sticking with a lightweight CPU-based STT engine instead of heavier AI models like Whisper on a low-power SBC. If you're curious about practical voice interaction for resource-constrained robots — not just what's newest, but what actually performs — this one's for you.
(Jim)

12:00 pm: 30 minute grab-n-go Lunch Break

12:30 pm: Announcements / Show-n-Tell / Open Session. It's a great opportunity to ask questions and get advice. Our members will bring in their projects and share what we've been up to. Are you working on something? Bring it in!

Also if you'd like to try out your bot for the contest in November now's your time!

For anyone unable to attend in person, here's the Zoom info for this Saturday's meeting.

Join us over Zoom

https://csulb.zoom.us/j/89064132312

See you this weekend!

[Alan Timm]

Good morning!

We're all set up and ready to rock.  See you there!

Join us over Zoom
https://csulb.zoom.us/j/89064132312

[Alan Timm]

Hey there!

The recording of our latest meetup has been posted here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AASQeoBcjFg

Links to individual topics:

00:00:00 Club Meeting Introductions

00:01:44 Alfie Rebuilt: Hardware Update, New Modules & Systems Integration! Alfie's back together and better than ever. This weekend, get an inside look at Part 2 of the rebuild — new hardware modules, fresh wiring, and the real work of getting everything talking to each other as one integrated system. If you're into robotics, embedded electronics, or just want to see what it takes to bring a robot back from the bench to fully operational, come check it out! (Alan)

01:06:18 Giving Orange a Voice: Rebuilding Wake Word & Speech Recognition for Low-Power Robotics! Orange's original wake word system just got desupported for hobbyists — so it's time for a rebuild. This talk covers swapping in OpenWakeWord for wake detection, updating the local Vosk speech-to-text language graph, and the real tradeoffs behind sticking with a lightweight CPU-based STT engine instead of heavier AI models like Whisper on a low-power SBC. If you're curious about practical voice interaction for resource-constrained robots — not just what's newest, but what actually performs — this one's for you. (Jim)

02:43:52 Show'n'Tell: (Sheylene) Helping with her Raspberry Pi

02:51:01 Show'n'Tell: (Greg) Introduction to his Mobile robot with Arm

02:59:32 Show'n'Tell: (Alan) Jailbreaking a local llm model, and Vibecoding improvments to mlc_llm

03:10:30 Show'n'Tell: (Milton) Shows us his amazing set of kitbashed upcycled robot art pieces

03:17:45 Show'n'Tell: (Jim) Hacking the Yahboom robot arm and adding it to Big Orange

Chat Transcript:

01:47:26 Vasuman: Where is this even being hosted, I went to the campus but could not find anything ?

01:49:11 Ben Partida: Hi Vasuman, We are on the CSULB campus. Exact address: 1331 Palo Verde Ave., Long Beach CA 90815

01:50:59 Ben Partida: The RSSC is not a CSULB club so we would not show up on any CSULB site. Our website is rssc.org where you can find all the meeting details

03:37:34 Jim DiNunzio: https://www.instructables.com/Autonomous-Robot-Racer-Analog-Mode-no-Microcontrol/

03:37:43 Jim DiNunzio: https://www.instructables.com/Arduino-Neural-Network-Racer

03:37:58 Jim DiNunzio: above are the two robots just presented

03:38:24 Milton: May I show robots that I made it's still art

03:38:49 Alan Timm: sure thing, we'll add you to the list.  thanks!

03:39:03 Milton: Thank you

03:39:21 Alan Timm: Reacted to "Thank you" with 👍

03:39:48 Ben Partinez RSSC President: Milton, you are on the List. You are after Alan

03:40:05 Milton: Ok

03:41:29 shaylene: Combat robotics ev nnnn