We are happy to announce that mini-competition are back. We are beginning with these 2 first event that are very popular at the robot games. Completions will happen on Saturday Mornings, at the Aerospace museum of Calgary.

August 28 – Mini-Sumo: beginner to master.

September25- Full size sumo – autonomous and  remote controlled.

Other competitions will be Announced and schedule later for October and so on.

Mini competitions are the  perfect opportunity to get started in robotic competition. So you can test your robot and settings to improve your level for the annual Robot Games.

-Competitors: Fees for the mini-sumo will be around 5$. please refer to WCRG 2010 rule book. Confirming your presence in advance would be appreciate, by emailing to:  info@mail.robotgames.com

Calgary Fire department got this cool robot in the early 80s. Volunteers at WCRS helped to refresh it and make it alive again

fire plug july 2010-video

WCRS is now expending its activities and now offering a new meet-up night for intermediate and more advanced robot builders.Also we still keep having our Saturday meeting the same as it is, open to everyone, with assistance on your project by WCRS members. Although Wednesday nights, would be an opportunity to go further; to share more in-depth knowledge about robotics related technologies.It would be also a time for the executive to a have briefing or their monthly meeting.

So Wednesday night at the Aerospace museum, from 7 to 9 pm.

WCRS will need volunteers to execute an important improvement at our home (Aerospace Museum). The project is to redo the network cable, from scratch, in a professional way. The benefit will be a better performance and smoother operation of the computers. In order to achieve it, we need as much volunteers as possible. We will make teams of 2 person, with a more experienced guy in each team if possible. We would work a good part of the day. There will be a meal available at lunch time.

Feel free to contact me at: dave.levesque@mail.robotames.com

Your help will be truly appreciate, on Sunday, July 11

What a blast! I hope you were all able to make it out this year!

I have submitted some clips to Discovery Channel for their PlanetYou segments. All videos will be available here:

PlanetYou

More will be uploaded as I can convert them!

Well, we are 12 hours away from the 2010 Robot Games! The event will take place at the Calgary Aerospace Museum:

View Larger Map

I will be filming the event, so bring out your robots to make them famous!

-Bryan

Just for the fun of it.

Found an amazing video that I would like to share with everyone.

Using the ARM processor and the camera in a Nokia phone, this developer was able to use the camera to scan a rubix cube, and solve it using a Lego Mindstorms kit! Enjoy!

Lego Rubix Cube

Last Saturday we had a special edition of our weekly meet up. We asked our members to bring some of their robotic creations, and that was totally awesome. I’m proud to say that WCRS we have skilled and creative robot builders.  We are looking forward to challenge our robot builders in our next annual RobotGames .

Thanks everyone who made the show and tell event a success.

Botone, Created by Terry, was driving around nicely, using an Arduino, a ping sensor & 3 servos

A robotbuilder proundly showing an autonomus roverbot that he built and programmed

A new locally made product, from G-Prime, a very handy power supply board for robots,

Mini-sumo wrestlers upgraded with a laser cut sheet metal chassis kit

An arduino powered rover, built around an acrylic chassis

Kids are so quick learners, and Lego Minstorm is perfect to get started

Dave is telling how his BEAM walker robot is working

there was a lot of action and projects of all kinds on display

Curious to see how we use all that new space ?
We are using it every Saturday morning, as we host a buildfest/meetup where WCRS members and guests can meet and have discussions.
Not only that,  we are introducing new enthusiasts  to robotics as well.  This includes, for example- soldering lessons, Lego Mindstorm  programming/debugging, and discussions about new components and technology available on the market for hobbyist robot builders.
We are proud of the recent meetup we had.  It was busy and fun, and a lot of skills and knowledge were shared between members and newcomers.

Come and Join us!

Crowd all along the new bench

Folks having fun soldering electronic components

young new robot builders in action

Collin was showing us the brain for his new robot, a powerfulll 1 board computer, powered by high performance lithium batteries

Mindstorms NXT Lego in action