Austin – Monday, May 10th: 6:30pm – 9:30pm, Austin Marriott at the
Capitol

Small World Expo will be hosting a networking event for companies
involved in small technology: nanotechnology, microsystems, MEMS,
NEMS, and general miniaturization. The meet & greet receptions will
be aimed at connecting companies together, discovering other real
and valuable innovations in the field, and establishing
partnerships.

Attendees will also learn about upcoming events and ways to promote
the industry further to help businesses profit now - rather than
focusing on idealistic, largely theoretical uses.

If you are currently involved in the small tech industry, or your
company would like to focus on the Small Tech industry, please RSVP
at http://www.smallworldexpo.com/rsvp.htm and don't miss the event


About Small World Expo 2005
Designed to be the largest event of the year for the small tech
industry, Small World Expo, a tradeshow will showcase existing and
emerging applications of the extremely small: nanotechnology,
microsystems, MEMS, NEMS, and miniaturization.  The 2005 Las Vegas
show will focus specifically on highly-practical and realistic uses
for small tech –applications that can be seen, felt, heard, and
experienced.  For more details, please visit www.SmallWorldExpo.com

A New Innovation in Robotic Sensors!


Terry Fritz, a Colorado based engineer and creator of award winning
robots, has designed a new sensor for robotics.

Mr. Fritz calls the sensor: ThereminVision  in honor of Leon Thermin
who invented and patented a musical instrument in 1919, which is
played by moving hands near a pair of antennas.

The advantage of Thereminvison II over current technology , infrared
sensors, is that, with properly places antennas,  you can have a
full 360 degree detection zone.

You can read about this on the What's New site: www.robots.net (1-
May-04,post)

Or, you can read about this technology on his web site:
www.thereminvision.com.



Bob Leonard

Take the Robot Challenge!

If you have ever watched BattleBots, Robot Wars, or Robotica and you
wanted to build your own combat robot, this is your chance.  Build
and fight your own combat robot in a world-class shop in this hands-
on 10 week course.

CSM's Tech Center is where it will happen.  The 15,000 square foot
facility in the center of the San Francisco Bay Area is equipped with
all the high-end production machines and tools a robot builder could
only dream of, including milling machines and lathes, welders,
grinders, sheet metal and fabrication equipment, keyway cutters,
electronic equipment, and much more.

Special emphasis will focus on building 1 to 30 pound combat robots
within a small budget, including using motors and gearboxes,
batteries, and radio controls from inexpensive items.

This class is designed for builders of any skill level and age (under
16 must enroll with a parent or adult partner). Even if you have
never picked up a tool in your life, you will be able to build a
competitive robot in this class.  There are no class prerequisites
for this course.

You can work alone or as part of a team with others who take the
class.

The class starts on June 14 and is held each Monday night from 6 PM
to 10 PM.  The final Robot Rumble will be held on August 23, 2004 and
the public is invited.

The instructor for this class is Jim Newton, an innovative mechanical
designer and BattleBots veteran who is currently working as the
Science Advisor for the MythBusters television show's third season on
the Discovery Channel.

The course costs $149, including the class and lab fees.  You will
also need to provide your own components for your robot, depending on
your design.

The class is filling quickly, so sign up now at:

   http://www.csmrobotics.com/

See you there!

RSA Meeting this Saturday

The monthly SF meeting is June 5th, 12-2, at SFSU (just south of Stonestown
Galleria) in room SCI256.
Map: http://www.robotics-society.org/images/sfsu_map.gif

This month's schedule:

Featured speaker:
Heather Dewey-Hagborg will show you how to solder surface-mount parts using a
toaster oven. If you thought that you couldn't solder surface mount parts, come
to this meeting to see how easy it is to make your own surface mount boards.
Heather will be demonstrating using an actual toaster oven and surface mount
parts.

Sumos, sumos, sumos!
Hey all you mini-sumo builders - let's have a mini-competition. Bring your
mini-sumos (any variant, including legos) and let's have a quick competition.
$20 to the winner.

Robot Soccer - Let's Build a Team!
So much talent in the bay area, and not a single robot-soccer team. Well let's
build one! We have the parts, the experience, and the group - so let's make a
miro-sot team! I'll discuss it in greater detail at the meeting.
Rules: http://www.robolympics.net/rules/soccer/fira/mirosot-l.shtml


Next month's meeting (July 3rd): Joe Miller will be demonstrating fire-fighting
robots. This will be a good opportunity to check it out and ask questions. If
you have a robot, feel free to bring it along to test it out in the arena.



-David Calkins, President
Robotics Society of America
http://www.robotics-society.org

-----------------------------------------------
"Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though
checkered by failure, than to take rank with those poor spirits who neither
enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in the gray twilight that knows
not victory nor defeat."
- Teddy Roosevelt

We had the first meeting of the robot-soccer group today.

We're looking at two variants-

MiroSot:
http://www.robolympics.net/rules/soccer/fira/mirosot-l.shtml

and

Aibo Robocup:
http://www.tzi.de/~roefer/Rules2004/Rules2004.pdf

We might do one, either or both.  Most people at the meeting are leaning to
MiroSot, which I LOVE, but requires more people and a wider skill set - but is
cheaper.  Aibos cost more but are easier to get-up and going.

All people are welcome to join and help out.  There is a long-term and short
term goal:

Long-Term: Field a team by March of next year for ROBOlympics2005 (10 months)
Short-Term: Be able to do demo's by mid-October at RoboNexus (4 months)

If we can make the short-term goal, I'll personally invest $1000 - BUT ONLY IF
WE MEET THE GOAL.

Don't think that you can't help out.  We need everyone - SW people, HW people,
idea people, artists, managers, money guys, and just plain enthusiasts (who in
my experience tend to get the most accomplished.)

This will be the ONLY direct email about this.  Further discussion will be via
yahoogroups.

Subscribe here: robo-soccer-subscribe@yahoogroups.com

Please feel free to forward to anyone who might be interested.


-David Calkins, President
Robotics Society of America
http://www.robotics-society.org

-----------------------------------------------
"Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though
checkered by failure, than to take rank with those poor spirits who neither
enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in the gray twilight that knows
not victory nor defeat."
- Teddy Roosevelt

We would like to remind you of this upcoming event.

COMBAT ROBOT BUILDING COURSE -- SF Bay Area

Date: Monday, June 14, 2004
Time: 6:00PM - 10:00PM PDT (GMT-07:00)

Take the Robot Challenge!

If you have ever watched BattleBots, Robot Wars, or Robotica and
you wanted to build your own combat robot, this is your chance.
Build and fight your own combat robot in a world-class shop in
this hands-on 10 week course.

CSM's Tech Center is where it will happen.  The 15,000 square
foot facility in the center of the San Francisco Bay Area is
equipped with all the high-end production machines and tools a
robot builder could only dream of, including milling machines
and lathes, welders, grinders, sheet metal and fabrication
equipment, keyway cutters, electronic equipment, and much more.

Special emphasis will focus on building 1 to 30 pound combat
robots within a small budget, including using motors and
gearboxes, batteries, and radio controls from inexpensive items.

This class is designed for builders of any skill level and age
(under 16 must enroll with a parent or adult partner). Even if
you have never picked up a tool in your life, you will be able
to build a competitive robot in this class.  There are no class
prerequisites for this course.

You can work alone or as part of a team with others who take the
class.

The class starts on June 14 and is held each Monday night from 6
PM to 10 PM.  The final Robot Rumble will be held on August 23,
2004 and the public is invited.

The instructor for this class is Jim Newton, an innovative
mechanical designer and BattleBots veteran who is currently
working as the Science Advisor for the MythBusters television
show's third season on the Discovery Channel.

The course costs $149, including the class and lab fees.  You
will also need to provide your own components for your robot,
depending on your design.

The class is filling quickly, so sign up now at:

   http://www.csmrobotics.com/

See you there!

SFRSA is looking for speakers for future meetings.  If you have some sort of
cool robotic project that you are working on that you would like to share
with others, if you have a product that you think might make robotics easier
for the average person, if you have a robotics project that you are looking
for others to work on it with you, if you are an artist who has a project
that has a mechanical or electronic component, we are looking for you.
Please contact sfrsaspeakers@... if you are  interested.

-Jack

> Well, as promised, finally I finished the translation to English. I hope
> it is clear enough!!
>
> The complete documentation of Melanie 2.0 (Hexapod of 3 dof/leg) is now
> available at http:\\mundobot.com
> This robot won the Spanish National Contest (Hispabot 2004) in the free
> test
>
> The version 2.0 is an evolution of Melanie v1.0, to which some interesting
> capacities have been added, like the direct programming, the generation of
> movements by displacement of waves combined with inverse kinematics, or
> the capacity to walk on rough terrain.
>
> Technical document, C++ program and some videos are available in the
> mentioned website
>
> Best regards from Spain
>
> Alejandro Alonso Puig
> http://mundobot.com/
> alejandro.alonso@...
>
>

> Well, as promised, finally I finished the translation to English. I hope
> it is clear enough!!
>
> The complete documentation of Melanie 2.0 (Hexapod of 3 dof/leg) is now
> available at http:\\mundobot.com
> This robot won the Spanish National Contest (Hispabot 2004) in the free
> test
>
> The version 2.0 is an evolution of Melanie v1.0, to which some interesting
> capacities have been added, like the direct programming, the generation of
> movements by displacement of waves combined with inverse kinematics, or
> the capacity to walk on rough terrain.
>
> Technical document, C++ program and some videos are available in the
> mentioned website
>
> Best regards from Spain
>
> Alejandro Alonso Puig
> http://mundobot.com/
> alejandro.alonso@...
>
>

Hi All,

I am John a newbie in Robotics and want to learn to build robots. I
just want to know which microcontroller are you using in development
(AVR-Atmel, PIC, HC11 or HC12, etc). Which you recommend and what kind
of development should I get.

Regards to all,

John Tobias

-----Original Message-----
From:  Cliff Thompson [mailto:cliff@...]
Sent: Friday, June 18, 2004 8:41 PM
To: SFRSA eGroups
Subject: test


  -----Original Message-----
From:  Cliff Thompson [mailto:cliff@...]
Sent: Friday, June 18, 2004 7:38 PM
To: SFRSA eGroups
Subject: test

Just a reminder to everyone that this Saturday is the SFRSA monthly meeting.
It will be held at noon in room 256 of the science building at San Francisco
State University. There will two presentations. The first will be by Ted
Larson and Bob Allen who will talk about the two-wheel balancing robots that
they have been working on recently.      The other presenter will be Joe
Miller who will talk about firefighting robots for Trinity College's yearly
firefighting robot contest.

I need to sense vertical position (or horizontal position) and
ideally get analog output so I can control the rate of device
movement to the proper position.

I haven't been able to find a device to use for this purpose, and I
hope to avoid re-inventing any wheels.  It seems like this has
probably been solved in a number of neat ways in robotics.

The device I am working on is a microprocessor controlled fence post
setting machine, with several robot-like characteristics.

Any ideas will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

That project sounds pretty fun to work on!   I have seen sensors that are
essentially something like a retractable wire on a reel that has a
potentiometer attached to the wheel's hub that allows you to detect large
positional displacements.  I think that I was searching for "linear
potentiometer" or "linear position measurement" when I came across them.

-Jack

----- Original Message -----
>
> Message: 2
>    Date: Tue, 29 Jun 2004 20:27:02 -0000
>    From: "Dick Illyes" <dickillyes@...>
> Subject: vertical sensing
>
> I need to sense vertical position (or horizontal position) and
> ideally get analog output so I can control the rate of device
> movement to the proper position.
>
> I haven't been able to find a device to use for this purpose, and I
> hope to avoid re-inventing any wheels.  It seems like this has
> probably been solved in a number of neat ways in robotics.
>
> The device I am working on is a microprocessor controlled fence post
> setting machine, with several robot-like characteristics.
>
> Any ideas will be greatly appreciated.
>
> Thanks in advance.
>

Hi everyone,

Parallax had their annual spring cleaning this week and got rid of
some old stuff.  There are lots of books, various carrier boards,
some Boe-Bot parts, etc.  I snagged some stuff to bring to the
meeting for give-away.  I'd might need some help to carry it from
the car.

Thanks,

Kris Magri
Parallax, Inc.

The only condition is, the stuff is in as-in condition.  Some parts
are partially defective.  A lot of it is from customer returns, so
for instance, the BASIC Stamp microcontroller (R) might have a
couple of burnt out pins.  You cannot return this stuff to Parallax
and try to get money back or exchange for  brand new module.


Kris

--- In sfrsa@yahoogroups.com, "kmagri1" <kmagri@p...> wrote:
> Hi everyone,
>
> Parallax had their annual spring cleaning this week and got rid of
> some old stuff.  There are lots of books, various carrier boards,
> some Boe-Bot parts, etc.  I snagged some stuff to bring to the
> meeting for give-away.  I'd might need some help to carry it from
> the car.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Kris Magri
> Parallax, Inc.

Roboteers,
  This is a reminder of this Saturday's club meeting
here in Southern Oregon.

Where:
  Brighton Academy
  Activity room
  1121 NE 7th St
  Grants Pass, OR
When:
  Saturday, July 10th
  6:00pm

  Come see what the members are up to and get inspired
to build your own robot. At this meeting there will be
a tutorial on using Transistors as switches in robotic
projects.
  Lots to see and lots to talk about! Come join us and
bring your bots!
-Dan Gates





__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Mail - 50x more storage than other providers!
http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail

-----Original Message-----
From:  John F. McGowan, Ph.D. [mailto:jmcgowan@...]
Sent: Monday, July 12, 2004 5:00 PM
To: NorCal Mars Yahoo
Subject: [mars-norcal] surplus radio telescope available

Northern California Mars Society
Are you interested in a surplus radio telescope?  Or do you know someone or some
organization that would want one ?
Please see the message below.  If you're interested, please let me know and I
will forward your inquiry to my contact.
Sincerely,
John McGowan
Chairman, Northern California Mars Society
Northern California Mars Society Web Site:
http://chapters.marssociety.org/northca/
NorCal Mars Society Yahoo Group: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/mars-norcal/
John McGowan's Web Site: www.jmcgowan.com
John McGowan's E-mail: jmcgowan11@...
John McGowan's Phone: (650) 941-1757

>
> Stanford is getting ready to decommission and demolish one of the
> radio telescope sites in the Stanford Foothills.  This site on
> Alpine Road near SLAC has five 60 foot diameter dishes in a linear
> array.  It was built in the 1960s and used until the 1980s for solar
> heliography.
>
> Before destroying the dishes, Stanford is looking for anyone that might
> want to use the site for further radio astronomy research or for
> anyone who would like to have the dishes and would like to move them
> somewhere else.
>
> On a historical note, this site was important in its day and apparently
> several well-known astronomers visited it.  A tradition developed where
> such visitors would chisel their names into the concrete pedestal of
> one of the dishes.  Some well-known names are still there including
> Lowell's.

Sorry guys, the car wash has been cancelled. We can't
get Home Valley bank. I tried getting the Umpqua bank
across from the post office, but is taken tell Aug
7th. We are scheduled for Aug 14th for the Umpqua bank
on 6th st.

If you know of any other fund raisers, besides bake
sales, let me or Tammy Peterman know.  Thanks
   Shawna



__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Mail is new and improved - Check it out!
http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail

Artificial Intelligence R&D Startup looking for 'AI Psychologists'

AdaptiveAI is an LA-based, private R&D startup developing a ground
breaking artificial general intelligence (AGI) engine. We are seeking
2-3 additional team members with a passionate interest in AI,
cognitive development, intelligence and learning. The work entails
the design, construction, and evaluation of training/testing
experiments for our developing AGI engine.

For details see: http://adaptiveai.com/company/opportunities.htm

Any FPGA hackers here? I'd like to get into it and would appreciate any
tips on where to begin.

-- Steve

Hi Ted,

Thanks for the helpful tips. Do you know if any tools are available for
OSX? I'll try to make it to the meeting tomorrow.

Cheers,
-- Steve

Just a notice that the July robot controller sales event at
http://www.1sorc.com is nearing its end.
-Dan

I am working on gathering a list of people that would like to participate in the
Walking Robot Seminar at the Robothon.

This year's theme is Walking Robots.  And it is open to all style of robots,
bipeds, quadrapeds, hexapods, 12 legged
monsters, and even one legged hopping robots.

The seminar is OPEN TO ALL ROBOTS, regardless if they private, commercial,
amature, or professionally made.  They can be
either remote controlled, tethered, or fully autonomous.  They can even be
partially constructed.

The seminar will be informal.  Here we will share our creations and ideas with
fellow robot builders that enjoy walking
style of robots, with th goal that we can all learn from each other, get help
from other like mined robot builders, a
come up with new ideas.

If you would like to make a formal presentation about your robot creation, or
some aspect that relates to walking
robots, such as balancing methods, walking gates, motor selection, software for
making a robot move.  Let me know what
you would like to talk about.  I would like to put a list of topics up on the
web page (www.robothon.org) so people can
plan to see them.

If you have a robot that you would like to show off, then bring it.  If you have
a webpage link to the robots that you
plan to bring, then let me know so I can also add them to the Robothon webpage.

The seminar will be a cross between a presentations and show off your creation.

I will be showing off some videos of various robots at the seminar.

At the end of the seminar, I will host an open forum to discuss rules a new
walking robot contest(s).  I will post some
draft rules prior to the event so we can have some time to think about them to
make some good comments.

Again, please let me know if you would like to participate at the seminar, so I
can allocate the proper amount of time
for the seminar.

Pete Miles
Robothon Committee
petem@...

Greetings Biomorphic Explorers,

Here is a Robotics Society of America (RSA) Legacy Web Site robot news
update:

(1) "RoboNexus International Conference & Exposition...a multifaceted
international forum bringing together all of the major players driving the
burgeoning personal, service and mobile robotics markets. RoboNexus includes
over 50,000 square feet of expo and will feature the latest robotics
products, technologies and applications...Oct 21-23, 2004, Santa Clara
Convention Center, 5001 Great America Parkway, Santa Clara, CA."

http://www.robots.org#RoboNexus <http://www.robots.org#RoboNexus>


Regards,

Cliff Thompson
Mediameister,
Legacy Website Creator
San Francisco
Robotics Society of America (RSA <http://www.robots.org/> )

Congratulations Dave and Simone!  May you have a hundred years of
blissfull matramony and may every day be like the honeymoon.
(disregard if the honeymoon was bad)
Can we expect little Dave's running around anytime in the future?

  Really though, I hope you had a great fairytale wedding, I'm truely
sorry that I could not attend.
-Dan Gates

http://www.goldengategarrison.com/gallery/calkinswed?page=1
http://www.laughingsquid.org/pix/2004_08/simone_david

At 15:58 03-08-04, you wrote:
>Congratulations Dave and Simone!  May you have a hundred years of
>blissfull matramony and may every day be like the honeymoon.
>(disregard if the honeymoon was bad)
>Can we expect little Dave's running around anytime in the future?
>
>Really though, I hope you had a great fairytale wedding, I'm truely
>sorry that I could not attend.
>-Dan Gates

Since so many of you have asked...

Some of the better ones:

Wedding photo: http://www.parody.org/goose/ds/wedding/pages/2004.08.01_18.12.41.htm

Mariachis: http://www.laughingsquid.org/pix/2004_08/simone_david/source/img_6377.html

Typical guests: http://www.laughingsquid.org/pix/2004_08/simone_david/source/img_6399.html

Obi Wan never told you about my father: http://www.laughingsquid.org/pix/2004_08/simone_david/source/img_6410.html

We got an ovation! http://www.laughingsquid.org/pix/2004_08/simone_david/source/img_6420.html

Beaming: http://www.laughingsquid.org/pix/2004_08/simone_david/source/img_6474.html

Ring bearer: http://www.laughingsquid.org/pix/2004_08/simone_david/source/img_6514.html

The kiss: http://www.laughingsquid.org/pix/2004_08/simone_david/source/img_6545.html

Toy Soldier Sword Arch: http://www.goldengategarrison.com/gallery/calkinswed/Image150

The Cake: http://www.bitchwick.com/amacker/fairytale/pages/IMG_0019.htm

The whole shebang:

http://www.laughingsquid.org/pix/2004_08/simone_david

http://www.goldengategarrison.com/gallery/calkinswed

http://www.bitchwick.com/amacker/fairytale

http://zmediastudio.com/SimoneDavidWedding/

I will be co-chairing the event, and have A FEW  free tix for RSA members bringing robots.

 -----Original Message-----

From:   Cliff Thompson [mailto:cliff@...]

Sent:   Monday, August 02, 2004 9:07 AM

To:     SFRSA eGroups

Subject:        [rsa] Robotics Society of America (RSA) Legacy Website News: RoboNexus

Greetings Biomorphic Explorers,

Here is a Robotics Society of America (RSA) Legacy Web Site robot news update:

(1) "RoboNexus International Conference & Exposition…a multifaceted international forum bringing together all of the major players driving the burgeoning personal, service and mobile robotics markets. RoboNexus includes over 50,000 square feet of expo and will feature the latest robotics products, technologies and applications…Oct 21-23, 2004, Santa Clara Convention Center, 5001 Great America Parkway, Santa Clara, CA."

http://www.robots.org#RoboNexus

Regards,

Cliff Thompson

Mediameister,

Legacy Website Creator

San Francisco

Robotics Society of America (RSA)