The Seattle Robotics Society
by Allyse S.
"A diverse group of professionals and amateurs, high school students and college professors, engineers and tinkerers" -- that's how the Seattle Robotics Society describes itself. Last May, Bear Metal went to visit, to see what the engineers, tinkerers and college professors were up to, and to show them what we were up to.
The Society holds monthly meetings at Renton Technical College, and each May they invite FIRST teams to visit, make presentations, and talk about FIRST. This time Bear Metal was joined by team xbot (team 488), Wolverine Robotics (team 949) and Issaquah Robotics Society (team 1318). Representing Bear Metal were students Sean, M., Fred B. and Matt C., along with Mr. Cahoon (our electronics mentor) and Mr. Collins (our advisor).
Sean M., Tahoma Robotics Club president, introduced our club to the Society. Then, Matt C. showed a PowerPoint presentation he had put together about programming the camera on our latest robot "Bearenstein". It was noted that "Bearenstein" has a gyroscopically controlled turret which is able to keep the camera pointing at a target even while the robot moves and turns beneath it. Our robot design won the Xerox Creativity Award at the Portland regional and the Rockwell Automation Innovation Award at the Seattle regional.
Bear Metal was impressed by the other presentations at the meeting. One of the Society members showed a project he was working on but which wasn't yet complete: a plastic ball covered with LEDs. Like a sign board, the LEDs will show a message, and as the ball rolls, the words will roll with the ball, producing the eerie effect of a motionless message on the rolling ball. It's a cool idea, and we hope to see it once it's working.
We are grateful to the Seattle Robotics Society for arranging this yearly event, and allowing us to present our projects to members of the Society. We get to show what we have been working on for months, and the amazing effort we put in to make our robots a reality.