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Bot Brawl and Build 2025 Fall is CANCELLED
Unfortunate news. We have had to CANCEL our Bot Brawl and Build 2025 Fall due to a medical problem for one of our members. We’re disappointed to do this, but on the bright side, this will give us all more time to prepare for the rescheduled event. We don’t have a tentative date at this point.
November 14, 2025 at 10:44 am | Uncategorized | No comment
July 2025 Monthly Meeting
Our July monthly meeting will be held this Tuesday, the 15th at 5:00 PM in person at River City Labs and online via Discord or Google Meet. If you want to attend online, message me and I’ll get a link to you. Visitors are welcome to attend. Our meeting format will be: 1) Planning and Business; 2) Tech Talk- “TBD”; 3) Show & Tell; 4) Mini Build & Test Session (Bring something that you want work on). Thank you River City Labs for allowing us to meet in your maker space.
July 14, 2025 at 11:10 pm | Uncategorized | No comment
Bot Boogaloo 2025 Spring Line of Events
Our Bot Boogaloo 2025 Spring will be held on June 21st starting at 10:00 AM and finishing up at approximately noon. The location will be the Izaak Walton Lake clubhouse at 725 Seven Hills Road, Metamora, IL.
The events have been finalized and will be:
- Mini Sumo
- Line Follow
- Line Maze
- Robomagellan
Demonstrations or fun competitions
- Circle Touch – This is a new tabletop competition similar to Cone Stalking. We are developing rules and course.
- Drag Race – Developing rules and course.
- Inverted pendulum demonstration.
- Ideas for a new event – Participants demonstrate an idea for a new event and solve it themselves.
If you will or hope to be competing, let us know so we can plan accordingly. Contact president@circpeoria.org with questions or registration.
The cost to enter will be $10 per bot per event to be paid at check-in. Lunch will be ordered from a local restaurant and a donation jar will be used to cover the cost for those interested. The location will be the clubhouse at Izaak Walton Lake on 725 Seven Hills Road, Metamora, Illinois. Visitors are welcome and there will be no cost to watch.
These competitions will be run with the emphasis on comradery, learning, and the general enjoyment of hobby robotics.
After the competition we will have a Build Session. These are casual unorganized sessions where will build our bots and talk robotics.
June 5, 2025 at 2:34 pm | Uncategorized | No comment
June 2025 Monthly Meeting
Our June monthly meeting will be held Wednesday the 11th at 5:00 PM in person at River City Labs and online via Discord or Google Meet. Visitors are welcome to attend. Our meeting format will be: 1) Planning and Business; 2) Tech Talk- “TBD”; 3) Show & Tell; 4) Mini Build & Test Session (Bring something that you want to work on). We’ll probably order dinner at some point. Thank you River City Labs for allowing us to meet in your maker space.
May 29, 2025 at 11:05 pm | Uncategorized | No comment
September Meeting
Announcement: The September meeting will be held on Wednesday the 13th at 5:00 PM in person at RCL and online via Google Meet. Visitors are welcome to attend in person and online. If you want to attend online, contact Bruce at president@circpeoria.org to get an invite. Standard meeting format will be followed: 1) Show and Tell; 2) Tech Talk- Initial Review of Pictorus; 3) Planning and Business; 4) Socialize. Details and directions to River City Labs (RCL) are on our meetings page.
Summary:
Show and Tell:
Bruce – 1) Ubuntu version best, LTS or Latest Version? Mike trusts LTS more because it is Long Term Support. Bruce had installed the latest version on his laptop over the weekend. He started the meeting using the latest version Linux distribution on his laptop to host the online portion of the meeting. Fairly quickly the video and audio kept disconnecting from the Google Meet. He switched to the Windows installation on his laptop to host the meeting online. That eventually crashed too. 2) For the Udemy online drone class, he has ordered copter pieces and watched some of the videos. He’s now waiting on the main package of motors and ESCs to arrive.
Peter – 1) Ordered a Photon 2 microcontroller that was on sale for ~$8 with no specific project in mind. He’s had good luck with a Photon 1 in the past and hopes the Photon 2 works well for his next project. 2) Subscribed to Midjourney for one year. Midjourney is an online tool similar to DALL-E. One difference is that one can upload images of themselves and use them. He’s just starting to learn this service.
Tech Talk: An Introduction to Pictorus Online Visual Programming Tool – Bruce
Shared FAQs and the basics of working with Pictorus programs in simulation mode. The tool is in beta mode, is intuitive, requires users to have some familiarity with controls engineering, is geared towards controlling micro-controllers that are running Linux at this time, and holds a lot of promise. Due to not having a specific cable, he was not able to show the flashing process.
Discussion:
Started discussing the possibility of running a Bot Boogaloo in the Spring of 2024. Nothing was decided and the club will continue the discussion online.
August 29, 2023 at 1:50 pm | Monthly Meeting Recaps, Uncategorized | No comment
October Meeting Will Be Online Only
We will be hosting tonight’s meeting online only, October 12, 2022. There will be no in person meeting at RCL for this meeting. Email the club president if you would like to attend online, and he’ll send you a link. We should be back to having the in-person option for meetings in November.
October 12, 2022 at 3:18 pm | Uncategorized | No comment
July Meeting Postponed Till the 20th
The July club meeting is postponed till Wednesday, July 20th. It will start at 5:00 PM. You can attend the meeting in person at River City Labs (RCL) or online via Google Hangouts. If you wish to attend online and are not a regular attendee, email president@circpeoria.org for an invite. Click on the Meetings tab to get a map to RCL and to learn more about our meetings.
July 12, 2022 at 9:33 pm | Uncategorized | No comment
Meeting Update
We’ve been meeting online throughout the COVID-19 pandemic using Google Hangouts. We’ve held regular monthly meetings and build sessions. The monthly meetings are held on the second Wednesday of the month. The build sessions are generally held on the fourth Wednesday of the month. Both are open to anyone. Details on them can be found on our Meetings page.
December 8, 2021 at 7:48 pm | Uncategorized | No comment
February Meeting Rescheduled
Due to the weather, we rescheduled the February meeting to Wednesday, 2/19/2020. We’ll meet at Germantown Hills Library meeting room at 5:00 PM. The meeting room is to the left as one walks into the library. Agenda: 1) Show and Tell, 2) Tech Talk: Mike will talk about PID Control, and 3) Beloved Business Stuff. There will NOT be a build session due to lack of time and being in a library instead of a shop. We will need to be out by 6:45ish at the latest, though the library would like us out by 6:30. (They close the building at 7:00). Hope to see you there.
February 12, 2020 at 3:41 pm | Monthly Meeting Recaps, Uncategorized | No comment
December Meeting Canceled
Due to our schedules becoming more congested and conflicted than normal, we have decided to cancel the CIRC December meeting. The January meeting is on Wednesday, 1/8/2020, at 5:00 PM at River City Labs. See directions on the Meetings page.
December 16, 2019 at 8:59 am | Monthly Meeting Recaps, Uncategorized | No comment