Winter Meetings During Break! We don’t have time to slack off.  We will be having meetings every week, please email micromouse@aesb.org if you want more information!

Hey all! We have a fundrasier on Thursday, November 19th from 5:30 to 10:30PM. Please come by to support us and watch the Lakers defeat the Bulls! We receive 20% of all purchases!

Avenue 3 Pizza & Subs
2226 Palo Verde Ave.
Long Beach, CA 90815
(By North 305 FWY, North on Palos Verdes)

As you all might know, I will be absent at next weeks meeting. There will be someone in charge of getting everything ready and started for the meeting. A few things I want everyone to put some effort into

-Personal Research
As you all know you should be doing research during your spare time. With research you will understand what we can do with different things
-Brainstorming Ideas
As you brainstorm ideas, you should write everything you figure out down. These ideas will be useful for future meetings and don’t forget to bring them up!

For the design project during November 13, 2009. The team narrowed down several choices for the fetching rover. So far, we have the size, points of supports, and the speed laid out for the rover. We debated that the size  should be 18cmx18cmx8cm with 4 points of support and the speed should be about walking speed. We also figured we should use two motors to drive the rover with a type of turning axis. For example a car’s turning axis.

During the meeting of Nov. 20th, 2009, I expect everyone to be able to figure out what type of fetching method we should deploy onto the rover. The final choices are:
-Odd-shape Cup design, which drops from the top and/or a ramp comes underneath;
-Crane Method, for example the crane on a toy machine;
-Paddle wheel method, like the wheel on a steamboat;
-Scooper ramp, like how a forklift picks things up.

Other things for the meeting on the 20th that should be accomplished are:
-Sensors;
-Programming flowchart;
-and as a priority the NSBE workshop.

Don’t forget to continue your research and to have a safe weekend. I will be here on campus from Monday to Thursday. If you ever need anything please email or call me.

-Bryant Trinh
MicroMouse Robotics Team President

Hello all MicroMousers.

This week we finished several demo boards. We should be done by Friday, Nov. 6th, along with a flight plan of the workshop. The new members have been working their asses off with the soldering jobs. Even though a lot of them are having trouble with it, everyone is being very helpful and attempting to move forward. Soldering PCB boards isn’t a skill you can accomplish in a day; for example it took me around a year’s worth of work to be able to solder decently. But remember, working on electronics is supposed to be fun! Sometimes, we might spell SUCCESS as S-T-R-E-S-S-F-U-L, but, we can not give up. Long hours in the office, putting time into your work will show later in your career as an engineering major. Other than working on hand soldering our workshop demos (pictures will be up soon), we have started our discussion on our rover. In order to develop a robot that mimics a simpler version of the Roomba, we have debated about the issues at hand: sensors, actuators, chassis, micro-controller, but, the most important thing is what we want it to do. Without a purpose for the robot, we cannot move forward in any direction.

In next weeks meeting, we will have a discussion and minimal workshop time. We will be discussing about the current project at hand, and in order to understand how we should build the robot, we will find out what we want it to do. Then, we can start developing a body for the robot and researching what we should use. I cannot emphasize how important researching is! Without research we will not learn anything, in a world where everything comes easy for us, we must learn of our own accord. With the search engines and all of the resources available to us, it makes me uneasy how people would rather ask someone to figure out the problem for them. Have some pride, figure out the problem yourself! You WILL learn more than you need to, but that knowledge is something invaluable in your life. Well, enough of me preaching to the choir. I will end my rant with this quote.

“I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” – Thomas Alva Edison

Well, back to work everyone…
Bryant Trinh

Hey all, recently went on a tour of the CSULB library. They should be having another private tour soon, I’ll send the email out! Here are videos and pictures! Enjoy!!!

-Bryant

Everyone please arrive on time this week from 2:00PM – 2:30PM for a 10 minute small debriefing for every team so I can better access where all the teams are at. Please speak with your team members on when you want to come so you can all make my life easier. I should be on campus at around 12:00PM on Friday. The actual meeting and discussion will start at 3:00PM.

This at this week’s meeting we will be discussing

Rover Project(AVR team)
Demo Project(Due Date: 2 weeks)
Boe-Bot Team(Personal Project)

Since we are getting a recent flux of members, we need to organize ourselves a little better.

Don’t forget that our room is open all week if you wish to work on projects during your spare time. Just let an officer know. If you cannot make it to a meeting, be sure to email us the club or call an member to let someone know. It would be a let down to your teammates.

This weeks meeting will be on Friday, Oct. 23rd at 2:30PM.

Meeting this friday, October 9th, 2009 at 2:00PM! We will be working on the Atmega168. Please come by for our workshop!

-Bryant Trinh

Please visit the EAT room to pick up your shirt.

-Juan, Co-Prez