Date: Friday, 15-Dec-95 09:25 PM

Subject: Robot Club Nov/Dec Newsletter

                                   Nashua Robot Builder's Newsletter

                                           Nov/Dec 1995

Hi all,

This is the (usually) monthly newsletter for Nashua Robot Builder's club. We're an informal club of engineers/hobbyists and enthusiasts who like computers, electronics and robots. We build small computerized robots as a hobby and meet monthly to trade ideas, swap stories, build robots, and generally have a pretty good time.

For November we had really good turnout, SIX PEOPLE showed! I may have to get a bigger apartment just to hold club meetings. We had alot of fun with a radio controlled blimp I got surplus and filled with Helium. I bet you never saw 5 full grown men playing with a balloon before but we all had fun figuring out the areodynamics of a mylar balloon. We even tried to add "wings" to it to help
it climb better.

The push is on to automate RC toys in the club now. I've finally got my half-tracked "Beast" driving around with my 6.270 computer perched atop it. I also got the Sharp IR hack worked out. So now I have a 6.270 computer with a home-built power board using LMD 18200 power H-bridge ICs to drive the big, fast motors on Beast, a pair of hall-effect sensors and all the rare-earth magnets in
Nashua mounted on the treads to detect how fast its going, a pair of CdS photocells to seek light with and coming soon, a group of Sharp IR detectors hacked to get an analog signal intensity to avoid reflections of IR light from walls and other obstacles.

Also, Jay Francis has been busy with his latest project, a Tyco Rebound RC car with a small 68HC11 computer he assembed on top. He's trying to impliment speed control using magnets and Hall effect sensors so his new robot will drive slower than 20 mph! When he brought it along he'd done quite alot of work and it looked pretty cool.

Ken Williams brought along his hardcopy of Parallax's BASIC Stamp app notes and shared them around. Theres' alot of good info in there and its free for those who can surf to Parallax's site. Check out http://www.parallax.com and get the Acrobat file reader to
view them with. (its there and free too).

December's meeting was snowed out so we'll just have to have that much more fun in January to make up for it.

Speaking of January, we're going to MIT to watch the annual 6.270 contest! I dont know exact date yet but last year it was around the 20th so reserve an evening that week. Its usually on a weeknight so plan ahead. I'll post again as soon as I know the exact date.

Plan for the MIT trip is to meet in Nashua at my place first and watch the '95 Robot Wars video (now on order) as a warm-up. We'll car-pool down to MIT and have a blast watching the contest.

Febuary is rolled into January so the next meeting in Nashua is March 9.

Happy Roboting! -

John C.

jdcook@mv.mv.com (ed: old email address)