Tag Archives: DPRG

DPRG Annual Meeting – 2020

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DPRG 2020 Annual Meeting Minutes:  Annual Meeting Minutes – 2020

Every year in January, DPRG’s members meet at the club’s annual meeting. This meeting is where officers for the new year are elected, and members discuss club plans. The 2020 DPRG annual meeting will be held at the Dallas Maker Space on January 11th at noon.

Agenda

  • Ray Casler, the current president, will sum up the club’s 2019 activities and discuss the state of the club.
  • The candidates for 2020 officer positions will be introduced.
  • The 2020 election will be closed after all attendees have had a chance to vote.
  • Ron Grant, the election overseer, will combine the votes received prior to the meeting by email and the votes made at the meeting, and announce the election results.
  • The new president will take office.
  • The new president will preside over the annual planning meeting.
  • The club’s 2020 annual planning meeting will start:
    • New president will discuss club direction for upcoming year.
    • Determine community events that the club will participate in.
    • Formation of Competition committee.
    • Determine topics that members want to have presented at the monthly meeting and ask for volunteers to cover topics.
    • Listen to suggestions and ideas on how to make the club better.
  • Member show and tell of projects.

DPRG Elections – 2020

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It is time to hold elections for DPRG club officers. The election will occur at the DPRG monthly meeting on January 11th, 2020. This meeting is also the club’s annual meeting, where plans are discussed. It is very important that members vote and attend the January meeting. The by-laws require that a specific percentage of members vote to make the election official.

A slate of candidates is proposed below at the recommendation of the present officers. This slate is composed of members who have indicated interest at recent club events. Any member can come forward and be added to the list of people considered for the various officer’s positions. If you want to explore holding office, an overview of officer duties can be found at  officer duties. You can also get additional information by talking to an existing officer at any monthly meeting or RBNO. If you want to throw your hat into the ring, please let me know quickly at email “secretary at dprg dot org” so you can be added to the ballot.

Proposed Slate of Officers for 2020

President: Carl Ott
Vice-President: Clay Timmons
Treasurer: Steve Edwards
Secretary: Doug Paradis
Librarian: John Kuhlenschmidt

How to Vote

All members in good standing can vote. The list of members is at member list. If you are not on the list and you think you should be, the problem is most likely that you need to renew your membership. Contact “secretary at dprg dot org” if you need help renewing your membership.

Members can vote by emailing their vote to “election at dprg dot org” before the January 11th meeting. The email should contain the text “I vote for the proposed officer slate”, or “I vote for the following people for office”, or similar text that allows our volunteer election vote counter to determine your intentions.

Members can also vote in person or proxy at the January 11th DPRG meeting. If voting by proxy, you should signal your intention to vote by proxy by sending an email to the person that you are giving control of your vote and to “election at dprg dot org” so the person holding your proxy and the person tallying votes knows of your intention. The person holding the proxy must then vote.

Scarily Realistic Animatronic Spider – Monthly Meeting Topic – Dec 14th, 2019

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Link to John’s slidedeck: slidedeck

December’s DPRG monthly meeting ventures into the frightful, with a presentation on the construction of a scarily realistic animatronic spider that happens to be ~4-feet in diameter.

John Gauthier conceived of this spider as a Halloween project. His presentation will carry us all the way from its layout in SketchUp to its final implementation. The spider is remotely controlled by a data glove and a switch wand. Movement of the robot is done with stepper motors and Microchip PIC MCUs. A Raspberry Pi handles the sounds. Communication between the controls and the spider are accomplished by using nRF24L01+ RF transceiver modules. The project utilizes custom build PCBs, 3D printing, and fabric crafts to create a truly impressive result.

The spider in all its glory (or is that gory) will be lurking at the DPRG December 14th monthly meeting at the Dallas Makerspace in the Interactive Room. Presentation starts at noon.

This is a wonderful opportunity to see how to conceive and execute a complex project. Don’t miss it!

Fall Competition 2019 Highlights

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The FALL competition for 2019 has come and gone. It was casual, exciting, and a lot of fun. Great progress was shown by several competitors.

Some highlights were:

  • Ross Melbourne’s Donkey Car completed 20 flawless laps (score: 80) within the 5-minute time limit of the Donkey Car competition on a course with an inside boundary length of ~50 feet (course is visible in the image above) . Unfortunately we lost the video of the 1st run, but see the video for the 2nd run below.
  • Carl Ott, Ray Casler, and Clay Timmons were all able to finish the Challenge Line Following course with 4 interventions. Each competitor showing great progress from previous attempts. Carl was able to reach block 5D before requiring an assist.
  • Carl Ott debuted his modified version of the 2016 Club Robot in the Quick Trip competition, taking first place with a perfect score of 7 in a time of 14.77 seconds.
  • Scott Gibson continued to rule the 6-Can competition, collecting all 6 cans in 1:42 minutes.

  • 1st Place Winners
  • 2nd Place Winners
  • 3rd Place Winners

FALL Competition Update

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By now, you should know that the DPRG Fall Competition has been moved from November 9th to November 16th, but do you know that the rules for the Donkey Car competition have been released and the training times scheduled? You can find out the details on the DPRG Fall 2019 Competition page.

Date change: Competition will be held on November 16th, 2019.

Donkey Car Training: 10:00 AM to Noon.

Donkey Car (DPRG version) Rules:  donkey_car-dprg_version_v20191014

Practical LiDAR for Hobbyist Roboticists

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Scott’s slide deck: slide deck (PDF)

Followers of DPRG’s competitions are familiar with Scott Gibson’s very successful robot CanMan. CanMan utilizes a spinning LiDAR manufactured  by RPLidar (~$100). In competitions where the arena is bounded by walls, CanMan’s LiDAR allows the robot to reacquire its location even after a collusion with walls or other robots.

At the October 12th DPRG monthly meeting Scott is going to share how you can add a similar LiDAR to your robot. The presentation will take a quick look at the serial interface and data fields used by the RPLidar unit, and then dive deep into how to use this data.

Scott will discuss the algorithms and code that he uses to:

  • Find the center of the arena,
  • Align to an arena wall,
  • Detect an outside edge,
  • Detect an inside edge.

This is a great opportunity to learn about how to use a spinning LiDAR unit.

The meeting is at the Dallas Maker Space and starts at Noon on Saturday, October 12th.

Autonomous Rover Robot with GPS RTK and Novel Control System – Monthly Meeting Topic – August 10th, 2019

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Ross’s slide deck can be downloaded at: slidedeck (PDF)

Guest speaker Ross Melbourne will demonstrate his autonomous rover robot which uses GPS RTK for navigation, and a novel robot control system that employs Unity and Python. Ross’s robot control system has potential practical applications such as: robotic lawn care, security patrol robots, and autonomous delivery services. Ross’s talk will cover both the challenges and the lessons learned that he experienced while building the robot.

This is a great opportunity to see a sophisticated antonomous rover build.

The meeting is at the Dallas Maker Space and starts at Noon on Saturday, August 10th.


Moon Day – 50th Anniversary of Apollo 11

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Moon Day 2019 held at the Frontiers of Flight Museum celebrated the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 mission. DPRG and Iron Reign, a very successful FTC team, both hosted booths at the event. Their booths contained multiple robotic themed demonstrations that allowed the crowd to participate while learning something new.

 

  • DPRG
  • Iron Reign

Roborama 2019 Gallery

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Nothing gets the enthusiasm going like a good robotics match. The enthusiasm at Roborama 2019 was epic. Everyone was excited and enjoyed themselves. 

DPRG would like to thank all the competitors that participated, all the members who helped manage the event, and our sponsors. A particular shout out goes to: Mouser, Pololu, Rev Robotics, and Tanner Electronics for their support. 

Here is a gallery of some of the sights at the competition. Click on the images to see an expanded view.

Roborama 2019 Pre-registration

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Pre-registration Time is NOW!

With Roborama 2019 less than a month away (May 11th), it is time to pre-register your robot team. If you tried and ran into problems, those problems are now fixed. Try again. Pre-registered teams get the best pit area placements. This year’s competition has several contests that will test your robot’s skills. Come compete, win, and take home great prizes.

  • Plastic Fastener-only Sumo – a student only event. Pits your robot in a contest of strength and strategy as you attempt to push your opponent from the arena. 
  • Line Following – with contests for beginners through advanced competitors and a special student only contest. Tests if your robot can follow a line around the course.
  • Quick Trip – an open event. Can your robot go straight? Can it make a 180 degree turn? This contest tests a fundamental skill of your robot. Never been in a robot competition? This might be your contest.
  • Four Corners – an open event. So your robot can go straight and turn, can it maneuver a large square and come back to its starting location? How close can it come?
  • Table Top (classic) – an open event. This contest is for the daring. Your robot moves around a table top with nothing to keep it from taking the plunge to the floor as you perform three tasks.
  • Can-Can Soccer – an open event. Race another robot to collect cans while not getting confused or hitting your opponent. 

More information and rules to the contests can be found at:

https://www.dprg.org/roborama-2019-competition/