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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Described by Jay Ingram as the “most remarkable young maker” that he has EVER seen, we are proud to introduce Joe Willis: Beakerhead’s much adored and hyper-talented youth ambassador.

L: What are you making/ building these days?

J: I have so many projects on the go that I don’t know where to start. The list of completed projects is much, much shorter. When it came time to prepare for CYSF 2013 I sadly couldn’t include everything that I had prepared. It was tough to cut some things out. Even then my trifold board was barely visible behind all the stuff I wanted to exhibit. When I go to places like Western Canada Robot Society (WCRS) or the Botzone, I am like a pinball, bouncing around learning about what other people are up to and it all sounds good to me.

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!

We’d like to invite all competitors to join us for the 20th Annual Western Canadian Robot Games!

May 11, 2013 at the Calgary Aero Space Museum. This year we have some exciting new demo events involving UAVs (Quadcopters) and hacked Roombas. We’ll also have some special guests from the hit TV series: Canada’s Greatest Know-it-all and even Jay Ingram,  who will be handing out awards!

We hope to see you at the Games!

The Western Canadian Robotics Society will be at The Calgary Public Library on April 13th to give Calgary a preview of some of the robots for the Western Canadian Robot Games. Come on down to the Central Library between 10AM and 2PM to see hacked Roombas, Arduino based tanks & rideable Scoperta Chairs!

Date: 13 April 2013

Time: 10AM – 2PM

Location:  616 Macleod Trail SE

Admission: Free!

For anyone not in the know, keep on top of the upcoming events in Calgary via Beakerhead!

Check HERE for their Upcoming events calendar.

Make sure to follow on Twitter as well!

Who is Beakerhead?

Check out the footage here:

http://calgary.ctvnews.ca/video?clipId=900307&binId=1.1201914&playlistPageNum=1

On Saturday April 6, the Western Canadian Robotics Society was the recipient of a $1,000 donation from Debora Rice-Salomons, CGA a benevolent supporter of many charitable and non-profit organizations.  Ms. Rice-Salomons comments “WCRS provides a wonderful opportunity for young people to learn about robotics, I believe this type of club is a great addition to the Calgary Community and I am happy to be able to help.”   Debora encourages everyone to “put back into the communities you live and work in.   When you see something you believe is good – do something about it – offer to help in any way you can – large or small donations of time or funds make a difference. “

Debora donated money to both the WCRS, and our host, the Aersospace museum.

Debora has also issued a challenge for the 2014 Robot Games, and has pledged a prize money donation for the event.

The WCRS would like to extend a heart-felt “Thank You” to Debora.

WCRS members are now amoung the Calgarians who own, hack and play with the Raspberry Pi.

For more details on the Rpi, see their homepage.

Here is the order getting ready to go out to some members: