Hi everyone,

The WCRS has a table at this year’s Calgary Mini Maker Faire!

We are looking for a few people to assist, and to represent the WCRS and the WCRG.

We need commitment on volunteers to properly plan this; the day is filled with meeting the public and representing what we do best – ROBOTS!  Capacity for this year’s event is around 1500 people a day, and all attendees are people who have paid admission.

This year’s event is being held at ACAD

If you have an active robot that can withstand a few hours of demonstration, or have a fondness to talk and a cheery attitude, we need you!  We are looking to fill about 4 spots (2 per Day)

We also have an opportunity to host a “Learn to Solder” workshop if we can find extra volunteers to assist.  This is a great workshop and was received extremely well last year.  We would need roughly 2-3 People for this event per day to host and assist patrons.

The event is Saturday 10am-6pm (Sep 14th) and Sunday 10am-5pm (Sept 15th).

Volunteers will be reimbursed a per diem, up to $20 per day of volunteering, to cover parking and lunch expenses.  Please remember to keep your receipts!

Please email me ( hepatus AT gmail DOT com ) with what you can contribute with and/or for, and the final list will be compiled on Saturday Sep 7th.

Thanks everyone,

Mark Martens

–Robot Lover

Didn’t have time to come out to Protospace on Tuesday or want to make some further mods on your Roomba? Join us at the Aero Space Museum this Saturday morning (May 4th) at the regular Robot Society meeting for the second round of Roomba Hacking. For $40 you’ll get a Roomba, Arduino Pro Mini, 7-pin Din connector, a battery, and free competitor entry into the Robot Games on May 11th. Just get yourself to the museum tomorrow morning, let the front desk know you’re there for the Robot Society and you’ll get into the building without having to pay the entry fee. Spots are limited, reserve a spot by emailing info@robotgames.com. We’ll let you all know on Facebook and twitter once it fills up. If it doesn’t fill up, just show up on Saturday and it’ll be first come, first serve. And May the Fourth be with you!

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Come hack with us at Protospace’s Tuesday night Meet and Geek tonight and for the price of admission to the Robot Games ($40) you could find yourself going home with a robot ready for the May 11th competition! We’ll be doing 2 building sessions at the same time, some will be outfitting Roombas with a new battery, an Arduino, & Din connector to compete in a timed obstacle course and others will be re-purposing RC Trucks to compete in a no-holds-barred race across an outdoor landscape to make it from point A to B without getting stuck. Find Jim and Mark at Protospace to get you setup and ready to compete. And as a Bonus if you spend $40 (or more) tonight your entry fee to the robots games will be covered!

Dust off your mini sumos and come on down to the WCRS meeting tomorrow morning.  (Head down to Comic-Con afterwards)

We’ll pull out the mini sumo rings and do some practice rounds so that everyone can tune and have time to refine.

If you haven’t registered yet, register here:
http://www.robotgames.com/2013-robot-games/2013-registration/

If you register prior to May 10th, you’ll be in for the GoPro Hero3 draw!  This is only open to competitors, so you’ve got really great odds of winning.  GO NOW> REGISTER!

For you minesweepers out there, we’ll be on hand to discuss the event.  There are 2 parts to the event and if you approach the event properly, you’ll do fine.  Register and come on down!

*** Update ****

Solarbotics has donated a special “Bring Out Your Robots” prize pack for tomorrow.  For everyone that comes with their robot, we’ll put your name into a hat. At 12:00 noon, we’ll draw a name for the winner.

So what’s in the Prize pack?

2 Distance Sensors, a PIR sensor and a SolarSpeeder Kit!

Totaled up, that’s a prize worth about $75!!!

Admittance to the Aerospace Museum is free for anyone that is coming for the WCRS between 10am and Noon.

Google Map to the Aerospace Museum

If you know someone who is interested in robotics but hasn’t had the opportunity to get involved yet, bring them by!  We have 2 workshops left before the games that will result in a competition ready robot to keep!

There is also plenty of time to build various kits and get them ready to enter.  While the workshops are going on, we’ll be on-hand to support kit builds.

A couple of options for those not in the know:

http://www.fingertechrobotics.com/proddetail.php?prod=ft-kit-cobra-chassis
https://solarbotics.com/product/bass/
http://www.robotshop.com/ca/productinfo.aspx?pc=RB-Plx-79&lang=en-US

See everyone tomorrow morning!