October Meeting at Germantown Hills Library
Our October monthly meeting will be held on October 10th at the Germantown Hills Library. It’s location is 509 Woodland Knolls Rd, Germantown Hills, IL 61548. We are holding the meeting here again since it has worked out well last few months. Meeting time is 5:00 PM to 6:30 PM. The meeting will be held in the meeting room to the left just as you walk in to the building. All people interested in hobby robotics are welcome to attend.
October 1, 2018 at 3:22 pm | Monthly Meeting Recaps, Uncategorized | No comment
September Meeting at Germantown Hills Library
Our September monthly meeting will be held on September 12th at the Germantown Hills Library. It’s location is 509 Woodland Knolls Rd, Germantown Hills, IL 61548. We are holding the meeting here again since it worked out well last month. Meeting time is 5:00 PM to 6:30 PM. The meeting will be held in the meeting room. All people interested in hobby robotics are welcome to attend.
September 12, 2018 at 11:16 am | Monthly Meeting Recaps, Uncategorized | No comment
August Monthly Meeting Cancelled
Due to the upcoming Bot Brawl 18 on Saturday the 11th, the August monthly meeting is canceled. If you are not an active member and were thinking of coming to that meeting, come to the Bot Brawl 18 instead. It will be a great time!! The September monthly meeting will be on Wednesday, September 12th.
August 4, 2018 at 4:11 pm | Monthly Meeting Recaps, Uncategorized | No comment
July Monthly Meeting at Germantown Hills Library
Our July monthly meeting will be held on July 11th at the Germantown Hills Library. It’s location is 509 Woodland Knolls Rd, Germantown Hills, IL 61548. We are holding the meeting here again since it worked out well last month. Meeting time is 5:00 PM to 6:30 PM. The meeting will be held in the meeting room. All people interested in hobby robotics are welcome to attend.
July 5, 2018 at 8:48 pm | Monthly Meeting Recaps, Uncategorized | No comment
Bot Brawl 18
Bot Brawl 18 was hosted on August 11, 2018 at the Peoria Civic Center in Peoria, IL. This event was part of Ignite Peoria and the Midwest MakerFest. This was our third year of teaming up with these great groups and we were delighted to be a part of it. The Midwest MakerFest is the largest MakerFest in the Midwest, and the Bot Brawl is the largest hobby robotics contest in the Midwest! There was art & craft exhibits, dance performances, maker demonstrations, and maker exhibits all day long in addition to the Bot Brawl. This event was a great blend of all sorts of creative energies.
After some last minute drop outs and walk-ins we had 27 Ants and 21 Beetles compete in RC Combat. The battles this year were more furious than ever with bot & battle box pieces flying everywhere while drivers exhibited great skill driving their creations. Lots of people were cheering for their favorite bots.
Results are shown below as well as at Challonge.com/BotBrawl18Ant and Challonge.com/BotBrawl18Beetle.
Tournament results have been sent to BotRank.com‘s site so all contestants will be ranked against other bots in the robot fighting world. I don’t know how long it takes for them to process the data. Go to their site and see your rank at http://sparc.tools/BotRank/index.php Note, this is not the same rankings as just typing BotRank.com into your browser window. That will take you to a legacy site. If you have questions, please email me, Bruce Stott, at president@circpeoria.org
Thanks to our sponsors AutonomouStuff, Servo magazine and Nuts & Volts magazine. We could not have held such a great competition without them. Thank you!
Antweight Results:
Results also listed at Challonge.com/BotBrawl18Ant/standings
| 1st Palce: | Kit-E-Cat |
| 2nd Place: | The Highlander |
| 3rd Place: | Ignatz |
| 4th place: | The Krave Monster |
| 5th place tie: | Happy Gnome |
| FL!P | |
| 7th place tie: | Tzschüeper |
| Bit Error | |
| 9th place tie: | Taster |
| Stretcher | |
| Holy Joe | |
| This is a Test MK2 | |
| 13th place tie: | 841 |
| Dipster | |
| Mr. Spincer | |
| ForkLift | |
| 17th place tie: | Ignition |
| Sky Shark | |
| Spinook | |
| Odium | |
| Emerald Ash Borer | |
| Danger Zone | |
| Commander Cupcake | |
| Not So Free Hugs | |
| 25th place tie: | Charlie |
| Stranded | |
| Sibar |
Beetleweight Results:
Results also listed at Challonge.com/BotBrawl18Beetle/standings
| 1st Palce: | Icky Mouse |
| 2nd Place: | Ataxia |
| 3rd Place: | Chunky Monkey |
| 4th place: | Phantom II |
| 5th place tie: | Sparrow |
| The lord marshal | |
| 7th place tie: | Animus |
| Calamity Jazz Hands | |
| 9th place tie: | Catalpa |
| Boomzilla | |
| Vortex | |
| Jabar | |
| 13th place tie: | Elepha-Flip |
| Rhino | |
| Death Wobble | |
| Tidal Wave | |
| 17th place tie: | k-too |
| Siege Engine | |
| Easy Eight | |
| TripOut | |
| Do You Even Lift Bro? |
June 5, 2018 at 6:50 pm | Brawls & Build Sessions, Uncategorized | No comment
June Meeting Location Moved!!
Our June monthly meeting will be held on June 13 at the Germantown Hills Library. It’s location is 509 Woodland Knolls Rd, Germantown Hills, IL 61548. We are holding the meeting here to mix things up. Meeting time is 5:00 PM to 6:30 PM. The meeting will be held in the meeting room. All people interested in hobby robotics are welcome to attend.
June 5, 2018 at 6:03 pm | Uncategorized | No comment
Monthly Meeting Recap 1/10/2018
Meeting notes from the first meeting of 2018.
- Attendees:
- Peter
- Karl
- Bruce Stott
- Mike
- Manish – New member
- Show & Tell:
- Peter had several items:
- He recommended checking out the LG robot fails at CES 2018: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tQMtbWwbduA
- He received a communication from Jsumo regarding their latest product, the Xmotion robot controller on indiegogo. This is an arduino-compatible controller with integrated high-current H-bridges. Good for sumo and other small robots. https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/xmotion-all-in-one-controller-for-robotics-robot-arduino#/
- He reported that he installed ROS2 on Windows. Basically it works, but is arduous to install and limited compared with ROS for Linux.
- He brought a 3d-printed container that opens only after being manipulated to solve a maze. https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:201097
- He brought a book he recently read called Invent It, Sell It, Bank It! by Lori Greiner from Shark Tank. It reminded him that he prefers product design over sales/marketing/business.
- Karl had made much progress on Wheel-E, which he demonstrated.
- He had the Leddar mounted and communicating over CAN with the Raspberry Pi.
- He had dead reckoning functioning based on encoders and a yaw rate gyro.
- He drove Wheel-E around, showing the Leddar point cloud in Rviz. It could show Wheel-E moving in a fixed frame of reference (based on position from dead reckoning), or show Wheel-E as stationary and the point cloud moving around.
- He demonstrated startup of the ROS system, which involves many steps in a particular order. During the meeting he created a launch file that automated some of the steps.
- Here is a link to videos of the robot driving around and its Leddar output displayed on a laptop.
- Mike showed some 3d-printed filament cleaners/oilers that he printed to use up a couple meters of filament at the end of a spool. The interesting thing about them is that they are a hinged box with clasp that print as a single piece. https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1692395
- Peter had several items:
- Presentation:
- We ended up talking a lot about Wheel-E, so we saved the technical talk till next time.
January 18, 2018 at 9:14 pm | Announcements, Monthly Meeting Recaps | No comment
Monthly Meeting Recap 12/13/17
- Attendees:
- Peter
- Karl
- Bruce Stott
- Mike
- Show & Tell:
- Karl – Showed progress on Wheel-E CAN bus architecture. He has removed the BotBoard and replaced it with an Arduino and CAN shield. He also added a CAN hat to the Raspberry Pi and created a CAN protocol for communication of Wheel-E parameters. The Arduino reads RC pulses, encoder counts, etc., and transmits them over the CAN bus to the RPi. He brought Wheel-E and demonstrated remote control operation using the new CAN architecture.
- Peter – Shared his 3D printed creations. Among them were a double slider crank mechanism, and a “straight pole curved hole” illusion (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gm-lCSPBdp4).
- Bruce – Showed his stripped down Battle Wheels bot to be used as a wedge RC Antweight, though it weighs 15.6 oz now without the wedge. There are opportunities to reduce the weight some, but not much.
- Karl – Showed progress on Wheel-E CAN bus architecture. He has removed the BotBoard and replaced it with an Arduino and CAN shield. He also added a CAN hat to the Raspberry Pi and created a CAN protocol for communication of Wheel-E parameters. The Arduino reads RC pulses, encoder counts, etc., and transmits them over the CAN bus to the RPi. He brought Wheel-E and demonstrated remote control operation using the new CAN architecture.
- Presentation:
-
- Officer Elections.
- President
- Bruce Stott
- Vice President
- Vacant
- Treasurer
- Peter
- Secretary
- Mik
- Webmaster: Website, Slack & Facebook administration
- Bruce Stott
- Librarian
- Mike
- Other? No.
- President
- Officer Elections.
-
December 16, 2017 at 5:56 pm | Monthly Meeting Recaps, Uncategorized | No comment
Bot Brawl 17 Results
Bot Brawl 17 was hosted on August 12, 2017 at the Peoria Civic Center in Peoria, IL. This event was part of Ignite Peoria and the Midwest MakerFest. The Midwest MakerFest is the largest MakerFest in the Midwest, and the Bot Brawl is the largest hobby robotics contest in the Midwest! There were art exhibits, dance performances, maker demonstrations, and maker exhibits going on all day long in addition to the Bot Brawl.
The day was a success with 49 robots going at each other. There were 20 Antweights and 14 Beetleweights competing. A couple of robots had to drop out due to not passing safety inspections. A few Beetleweights could not get ready in time and dropped out at the last moment. The Mini (500g) Sumo event had 10 competitors that produced a few surprises with the upstarts taking on the veterans. The Mega (3 kg) Sumo had only 2 competitors. Two of the pre-registered robots ran into technical difficulties the night before and dropped out. Still, the 2 entrants that were able to compete put on a good show. The Line Following and Line Maze events were held as demonstrations due to a low number of entrants. Checkers on a Sumo Ring had 3 competitors, with the victor upsetting last year’s champion. The RC Combat Rumbles held at the end of the day were a great roar of fun. The Antweight victor was chosen by audience applause since there were at least 6 bots still moving at the end of 4:00 minutes. The Beetleweight victor was a surprise and left no doubt as to who was in charge of that rumble!
Live streaming videos are available at https://www.youtube.com/user/circrobotics
Here is a table of the final results.
| Bot Brawl 2017 Final Results | ||
| 500 g Mini Sumo | ||
| Place | Robot | Team |
| 1 | Blooman | dbots |
| 2 | Newman | dbots |
| 3 | Orthos | dbots |
| 4 | ExSpurt | Brooksbots |
| 5 | GIZMO-UNI | TeamUNI |
| 5 | Zoom-O | CoolWHip |
| 7 | LI’L DEVIL | TeamUNI |
| 7 | Zuman | dbots |
| 9 | KING ARDY | TeamUNI |
| 9 | UNICORN | TeamUNI |
| 3kg Mega Sumo | ||
| Place | Robot | Team |
| 1 | Executioner | Brooksbots |
| 2 | Turf | Andrew & Todd |
| Antweight | ||
| Place | Robot | Team |
| 1 | Ignatz | VBT Robotics |
| 2 | The Snip | Rad Robotics |
| 3 | Pushy Wushy | Rad Robotics |
| 4 | Taster | Bleach Boys |
| 5 | Ignition | Haven |
| 5 | Betula | Anthracnose |
| 7 | The Krave Monsters | Hurd Robotics |
| 7 | This is a Test | TML Productions |
| 9 | Spinook | CoolWHip |
| 9 | 10 Days Til Destruction | Warwick Robotics STL |
| 9 | Ygritte | The Northerners |
| 9 | Some Putty’s In Trouble | Warwick Robotics STL |
| 13 | Holy Joe | Scrappy Angels |
| 13 | Peter Pan | Hurd Robotics |
| 13 | Circular Reference | Arch Reactor STL |
| 13 | Stretcher | Bleach Boys |
| 17 | Wombatchewed | Loos Cannon |
| 17 | Sky Shark | Black Lightning Robotics |
| 17 | Calamity Jazz Hands | Rampage Productions |
| 17 | Odium | Widows Peak |
| Beetleweight | ||
| Place | Robot | Team |
| 1 | k-too | HtG Robotics |
| 2 | Phantom II | Black Lightning Robotics |
| 3 | Catalpa | Anthracnose |
| 4 | Boomzilla | Rampage Productions |
| 5 | Cyanide | VBT Robotics |
| 5 | King Googly | Hurd Robotics |
| 7 | TripOut | Team Cerberus |
| 7 | From the Top of Skyscrapers | Warwick Robotics STL |
| 9 | Death from Above | Endgame |
| 9 | Al6bb1 | Al6kar |
| 9 | Dandelion | Rampage Productions |
| 9 | Icky Mouse | Widows Peak |
| 13 | Elepha-Flip | Dan The Robot Man |
| 13 | Honorable Mention | HtG Robotics |
| Checkers on a Sumo Ring | ||
| Place | Robot | Team |
| 1 | Coaster | Central Illinois Robotics Club |
| 2 | Triple Jump | Team tOBOR Combat Robotics |
| 3 | King Me | dbots |
| Antweight Rumble | ||
| Place | Robot | Team |
| 1 | Spinook | CoolWHip |
| Beetleweight Rumble | ||
| Place | Robot | Team |
| 1 | Icky Mouse | Widows Peak |
Many thanks to our sponsors for 2017!! Without them, our prize selection would not have been possible. With all the great prizes we were able to offer, our victors had a hard time selecting which prizes to take home.
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August 9, 2017 at 4:10 pm | Brawls & Build Sessions, Uncategorized | No comment
Rules Finalized for Bot Brawl 17
Rules for Bot Brawl 17 have been finalized. The changes made were minor. Our goals was to loosen up some areas and get rid of ambiguities in other areas. Rules can be found on the “Bot Brawls” page. Just click on the event you are interested in.
June 21, 2017 at 10:10 pm | Uncategorized | No comment