robotics workshop

we had an overwhelming number of successes today. the room was packed! Mike and his suped-up machine that hops like a low rider. Wayne and Lauren going with the perpendicularly-opposed drive, James had great success triggering the critter with his mag light, and so many others it escapes my electron addled mind. the photos of course are linked to the nbsp flickr group

many people asked, when is the next one? I am eager to try a project called the symet which is a symmetrical junkbot that is autonomous. autonomous, in that, it uses a solar cell so it searches for it's own "food". and "junkbot" meaning that we can salvage (ie free) many components from our garages, the thrift store, Aunt Mabel's attic, etc. start looking for discarded microcassette and cassette players, old pcb's, and anything else you want crack the case on. (on another project, I recently built FM transmitter using on materials scavenged from old pcb's!)

and lastly, I want to game these critters and the future bots. Obviously there is the race. what else could we do? I wanna see the nitro-fuel funny robot races between Lauren's and Wayne's 'wheeled' versions. send me your suggestions. I think we should have some games in the next couple of weeks. And I challenge Mike and anyone else to see who can make their bot jump higher, just like the low-riders here in O-town. Any volunteers want to judge?