Previous Year Schedules
January 25th 2012
Two Presentations: Robotics Activities & Heroes Spark Interests in Engineering & Science AND "Arduino Robotics" Book Review
by Ceal Craig and Allan Federman
The United States needs engineers and scientists to fuel the innovation fires of high tech and beyond. Young people today are not aspiring to those fields in the numbers of decades past. Learn more about the current state of STEM (Science, Engineering, Technology, and Mathematics) graduates. Understand how career theories suggest that robotics activities spark interests in engineering and science in young people. Learn how heroes (role models & mentors) make a difference for young people, young women in particular. Find out why engineers might need to change the conversation when they are talking to young people to inspire them. Ceal Craig, engineer (BSME, The Ohio State University; MSEngr. CalState Fullerton) and educator, will share her research in these areas with HBRC members. Ceal is actively involved with Western Region Robotics Forum and recently retired from 30 plus years in high-tech engineering and manufacturing. She is working on a PhD in Education at Walden University studying the influence of robotics programs on young people’s career decisions. "Arduino Robotics", by Warren, Adams and Molle, is a fairly substantial work covering all the Arduino basics; electronics, pcb, sensors, actuators, chassis design, and programming. This is an excellent source for the beginner, but also has some nuggets for the veteran.
February 29th 2012
Guide Robot for the Blind
by Brian Higgins
Brian Higgins will be talking about what the Clear Path Navigation software group is doing to create a seeing eye robot guide for the blind.
March 28th 2012
Architecture for Mine-Detecting Robots
by Team McCarthy
This presentation focuses on a proposed architectural design for peer-to-peer coordination of a large mine-sweeping robot grid. Our scenario consists of 10,000 available robots that we want to deploy on a mine field in order to cover as much ground as possible. We'll review how we propose to lay out the robots, the way each robot will communicate with the rest of the grid, how path decisions are made and how the grid will handle mine detonations. We will also spend some time describing the reasoning behind each of our proposals and explaining how coordination amongst the robots will occur.
AND
Romo, the smart phone robot
by Keller Rinaudo from Romotive Inc.
Keller will talk about Romo, the smart phone robot that Romotive, Inc is working on.
April 25th 2012
Computer Vision and Machine Learning for Robots
by Patrick Goebel
This talk will provide a short introduction to the use of computer vision and machine learning in robotics. Topics will include motion detection, feature extraction, face tracking and recognition, color and template matching, as well as adaptive tracking of arbitrary objects. The talk will also include demonstrations of a number of popular algorithms used in the field such as corner detection, optical flow, visual saliency, neural networks, SVM (Support Vector Machines), K Nearest Neighbors (kNN) and Random Trees.
May 30th 2012
How to Teach with Robots
by Hanno Sander
This talk will share insights into how teachers are using today's leading robot and software technologies to teach with robots.
Particular emphasis is placed on how robots enable students to quickly grasp abstract concepts critical to success in subjects like science, technology, engineering and math (STEM).
Here's an interview with Hanno:
http://circuitcellar.com/featured/interview-hanno-sander-on-robotics/
Biography:
Hanno Sander earned a degree in Computer Science from Stanford University, where he built one of the first hybrid cars, collaborated on a microsatellite, and studied artificial intelligence. He later founded a startup to develop customized information services and then transitioned to product marketing in Silicon Valley with Oracle, Yahoo, and Verity. Today, Hanno’s company HannoWare seeks to make sophisticated technology—robots, programming languages, debugging tools, and oscilloscopes—more accessible. Hanno lives in Christchurch, New Zealand, where he enjoys his growing family and focuses on his passion of improving education with technology.
June 27th 2012
10th Annual HBRC Challenge: Tabletop Phase 1
by Camp Peavy
Two hours of the best part of the meeting... Show-and-Tell. Featuring the Table Top Challenge: Phase I (Build a robot that goes from one end of the table to the other and back). There will also be our annual potluck dinner from 7-8pm. Extra karma points for robot themed food.
July 25th 2012
Flow based Programming for Robots
by Andrew Klofas
Trying to get high performance out of robots without making a mess? I'll talk about some of the design choices and tradeoffs in software. I'll bring 4 or 5 robots and talk about the software I've been developing for them.
August 29th 2012
10th Annual HBRC Challenge: Tabletop Phase 2
by Camp Peavy
Two hours of the best part of the meeting... Show-and-Tell. Featuring the Table Top Challenge: Phase II (Build a robot that finds an object and pushes it off the table).
September 26th 2012
An Introduction to Microsoft Robotics Developer Studio
by Arthur Wait
Microsoft entered the world of robotics development software in 2006 with their Robotics Developer Studio platform (MRDS). Built on top of Windows and the Microsoft .Net Framework, the platform is designed to simplify the complex task of writing multi-threaded, distributed software for robots. Microsoft's latest version of MRDS provides native support for the Kinect Sensor, as well as a number of new and improved features. Learn more at www.microsoft.com/robotics
Arthur Wait is a Menlo Park software developer by day and a rank amateur roboticist...occasionally. He'll provide an overview of MRDS and an honest account of his experience with learning and using the platform. He'll also demonstrate a robot running MRDS, and looks forward to the inevitable follow-up discussion comparing MRDS with ROS.
October 24th 2012
10th Annual HBRC Challenge: Tabletop Phase 3
by Camp Peavy
This is our 10th Annual "Challenge Meeting" featuring the TABLEBot Challenge. In "Phase III" we have the robots push a block into a shoebox mounted at the end of the table. In addition to traditional TABLEBot demos we open up the show to Run-What-You-Brung! Featuring a potpourri of robotic projects (Micromouse to Humanoid) from club members. Bring what you are working on! Two solid hours of the best part of the HBRC Club meetings: Show-and-Tell.
November 28th 2012
Surface Mount Technology for Roboticists
by Wayne Gramlich
The newer and more interesting electronic parts (particularly microcontrollers) are only available in surface mount technology packages. This talk will go over the software and hardware tools and procedures that are applicable for amateur roboticists to design circuits using SMT packages. This includes printed circuit board design, fabrication, soldering, etc.
December 26th 2012
Title TBA
by Speaker