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Meeting June 4th, 1999


PAReX Meeting Notes

Club Sumo Robot Project After the completion of BotBash and Possibly Robot Wars the Idea of a collaborative Club effort to build a Japanese Class Sumo robot to compete on the rapidly developing Sumo competition circuit.

BotBash !! The event is almost upon us, just a little over a month to go. A list of volunteers was taken for those who wish to help out at the event. Promotional posters were given to members for distribution to high traffic areas to help advertise the event. The arena layout drawings were displayed along with the overall setup at the SunSpree resort. Things are lookin’ good and coming up Fast!

IRS 501 c (3) With PAReX now fully incorporated, we are now able to apply for IRS 501 c (3) tax exempt status. This status will help the club to grow by offering potential sponsors of the club tax deductable donations.

We had around 25 people present and at least 9 robots at this meeting!

I was having some problems getting INKY ready for the maze competition, thanks to Chris Harriman, Steve Rowe, and Mike Linnen I was able to get my minor disasters taken care of and "Inky" was ready to go! There was some discussion among the crowd about starting some tutorials during each meeting to help out the beginners and maybe teach some new things to the "Old Pro’s" Sample subjects were How to Hack a servo, Servo driving code, basic sensors, and the like.
Mike Reiner

PAReX Meeting Pictures

Right before you get to the lab. on the way
Chris H. showing us the door. 069902
Mike R. shows us a gear train he built. 069903
Maze robot by Mike L. 069904
Robot by Mike R. 069905
Robot by Bob G. 069906
Did not get the builders name. 069907
Gathering around the maze. 069908
A small bot with Bob Pitzers robot. 069909
Closeup of a "Peppy mini-bot". 069910
Too small, throw it back! ;) 069911
Closeup of Alexandra's "Hyper Peppy mini-bot". 069912
Bob Pitzer's "Scan Scan
Alan Smith's Alan Smith's Bot

Contest Results

The Maze competition this month had 5 entries making it one of the larger ones had in quite a while. Alex Carter won the maze competition with a stock "Hyper Peppy", those things do pretty good, and not a bad run for the first time out. Mike Linnen came in second with a respectable run from "Doctor X" a robot that was able to navigate the maze fairly briskly despite what looked like some highly confused moments . I came in third with an Amazing Drama of hitting the wrong place at the right time, we were going to cut things off at 5 minutes, but things finally went right and "Inky" made it with 41 seconds to spare. Rohn Brown also a first time competitor in the monthly maze competition submitted a "Peppy" to the trials, and tried as it could, that last third of the maze just proved too elusive. Bob Pitzer tossed "Cujo" into the mix and the midsection of the maze proved sufficiently imposing enough to run Cujo back to the start repeatedly. Of Course once the clock was off ,"Cujo" ran the maze like he had a map, directions and an onboard navigator! Bob’s Lego Mindstorms creation "X-23" was daunted by the middle of the maze as well, but being the only Lego class robot in the competition "X-23"still holds the class win!


Lego Class:
PlaceRobotTime in Sec
 Bob Pitzer's ScanDNF

Open Class:
PlaceRobotTime in Sec
1stAlex Carter's Hyper Peppy57
2ndMike Linnen's Doctor91
3rdMike Reiner's Inky259
 Rohn Brown's PeppyDNF
 Bob Pitzer's CujoDNF