Last night Hive 76 hosted the second Robotics Meetup Group of the year. We saw some new faces and discussed some interesting topics such as beginner robotics kits, Arduino-based robotics solutions, oscilloscopes, and wirelessly powered flying robots.

Speaking of flying robots, regular member Tom Setliff brought in his quadrotor (a robot which uses 4 rotors for flight) project that he’s been working on for about 2 months now. It really surprised us how far along he’s already gotten with the frame for his creation. Kudos Tom. Our organizer and group leader Roy Brewer also talked about the custom made AVR-based microcontroller that he’s testing out for his own quadrotor project.

The video here, sent in by Hive 76 member Jim Fisher (also of PLUG and PACS fame), shows a proof of concept Quadrotor demo being done at GRASP Labs at the University of Pennsylvania.

Our very own Hive 76 Quartermaster, Brendan Schrader had some cool things to say in our conversation about oscilloscopes. He even showed us his neat Seed Studio pocket oscilloscope.

All together another great meeting for 2011!

For those that are interested, our next meeting is March 10th at 7:30 PM. Hope to see you there next month!

This Wednesday Mike and I will make some bioplastic from starch, water, glycerin, and vinegar. Then microwave it, squish it in a mold, and stick some LEDs in there. If you haven’t noticed, I like doing things for the sake of doing them and then maybe finding a use.

There will also be some blink & buzz supplies there and heart shaped molds for your people that care about hearts.

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Tonight we will be summing up a long email thread by smushing paper pulp into a 3D printed PLA mold.

This will be followed by PJ making some conductive glue with you.
How could they be combined? Come find out!

Last night’s gaming event was a huge success! We played 3 consecutive games of Artemis Spaceship Bridge Simulator, and the entire event lasted about 3 hours. Highlights were our tactical officer Adam E. blowing up every ship that we came in contact with, Captain Chris’ excellent leadership, and our engineer Brendan possibly getting us blown up while he was on his phone. Starfleet Security is looking into that last one. Everybody seemed to have a lot of fun and there was interest in playing the game again soon.

I’d like to thank Hive members Brendan, Adam K., Chris, and PJ for helping to set everything up and making sure everyone had enough computers to play. I’d also like to thank everyone else who rocked at their bridge stations and commanding roles.

Until the next adventure, Hive 76 out.

At this week’s open house Hive 76 is hosting it’s second LAN gaming event. We’ll be playing Artemis Spaceship Bridge Simulator. What is Artemis Spaceship Bridge Simulator you ask? Well, it’s a co-operative computer game that simulates a spaceship bridge, similar to the ones you’d see on Star Trek. Each player is given a key bridge position to help guide the ship on a successful mission. Click here to see an awesome, and quite hilarious example of the game in action.

Players need only to bring a PC laptop or netbook as the game software will be provided. So come join us, because at this open house we’ll be cranking it all the way up to warp 11!

The fun starts this Wednesday, January 19th at 9:00 PM.

Hope to see you there, Captain out!

Last night Hive 76 hosted the first Robotics Meetup Group of 2011. For those who are unaware, the group is organized and run by Roy Brewer and Hive 76 has been hosting a space for the group since September of 2009.

This month’s meeting featured an appearance by inventor & entrepreneur Michael Treat, who’s company Robotic Systems & Technologies, Inc. (RST) has been featured in sources such as the New York Times, ABC, TLC, and BusinessWeek. Mr. Treat stopped by to give a talk on his company’s newest project: a robot called Penelope CS, which is designed to automate work in a hospital’s sterile supply department. Sterile supply is the department where used surgical tools are cleaned, sorted & inspected, packed into containers, and finally sterilized to be ready for the next procedure. The talk concluded with Treat announcing that Penelope CS is ready for action, and RST is looking for partner hospitals in which to deploy the product.

After the talk we discussed ongoing projects within the group including 2 members who are building quadrotors, our uGPS project (an indoor GPS system), and other types of robots (delta bots, for instance).

We meet every second Thursday of every month, and our next meeting is February 10th at 7:30 PM. I’d like to encourage everyone with an interest in robots or electronics to join us. This is a fun and exciting group!

We enter the cold, dark days of December with a super Open House meeting. As always, the night starts off with our 7pm Scrum stand-up meeting for members to update everyone on the progress of their projects. 8pm starts the official Open House, with pizza, soda, and snacks.

Keeping in our new tradition of “mini projects for open houses”, Adam and Jack will be showing everyone the basics of building electric motors. Previous open houses covered Glowsticks and Bristle Bots. Building simple motors is really a lot easier than you might initially think. Hand-made electric motors are a fun way to learn basic principles of circuits as well as a handy skill for any project that needs a little movement. Come on down and play with electromagnetic fields with us!