Fall 2002 - Workman 196

Introduction:

Welcome to the NMT Robotics Club website. This site is intended to provide information to current members, prospective members, and club visitors. This site is organized into several main categories, which are accessible by the menubar on the left.

What is NMTRC?

The New Mexico Tech Robotics Club is a scolastic club designed to give students of New Mexico Tech a place to develop their "robot building skills". These skills include hardware development, software development, and prototyping, as well as many others. Another main focus of the club is to design and build robots to compete in national and international tournaments.

Who can join NMTRC?

Basically, anyone can become a member of NMTRC. For more detailed information, please visit the Membership section.

Where is NMTRC?

The Robotics Club does not have a permanent office or lab. However, we meet regularly on Tuesdays at 5pm in Workman 196. Special meeting times and locations will be announced in the Meeting section.

Remember:

The NMTRC is a club designed for students to learn about robotics. No one is expected to be adept in robot design and construction when they join. Anyone and everyone is welcome to join the club, regardless of current skills and qualifications. If you would like to know whether or not the club is right for you, you are encouraged to visit and sit in during a meeting.

robotics@ee.nmt.edu

Membership:

The New Mexico Tech Robotics Club probably has the most lenient requirements for people interested in joining the club. Basically, the club is open to all New Mexico Tech students. Contrary to popluar belief, you do not have to be an EE major, or a CS major to join this club. Anyone interested in robotics is encouraged to attend one of our meetings.

Requirements

The NMTRC has no official membership requirements. However, we encourage anyone who wants to be a member to attend club meetings and to sign their name on our SA club membership list.

Mailing List

NMTRC has a mailing list. Occassionally, we send out information to our members. If you would like to be on our mailing list, please email robotics@ee.nmt.edu with "add" in the subject line. If you want to be removed from the mailing list, please email robotics@ee.nmt.edu with "remove" in the subject line.

Officers

The following a list of the current club officers:

President: David Baird (dbaird@ee.nmt.edu)
Secretary: Jessica Walker
Treasurer: Brandon Barber
Historian: Hector Malagon (ordoon@nmt.edu)

Meeting Information:

NMTRC holds regular meetings every Tuesdays at 5pm in Workman Center, room 196. Meetings normally last between thirty minutes and an hour, but may last a lot longer, depending on scheduled activities.

Formal Meeting Agenda

Approval of last meeting's minutes
Approval of current agenda
Reports from:
- President
- Treasurer
- Secretary
- Project Workers
Old business
New business
Discussion
Adjournment

Club Minutes:

Following is a list of the published minutes for the Fall 2002 Semester. To review a minutes, please select it from the list. A new window will appear.

Projects:

Proposing a Project

In order to officially propose a project, you must complete and submit a written project proposal document, following the format in the template. Please include as much information as possible when submitting a project proposal. This will help us to more easily alocate resources.

Current Projcets

Kadjo-Bot (unofficial)

D. Kadjo has (unofficially) proposed a six-legged walker. The robot -- which has yet to be named -- will possibly consist of two tripodal sections that move in steps.

High-Speed Battery Charger (03092002)

Battery recharger that can: charge batteries from 1V to 18V, detect the battery type, charge fast (near the C rate - approx. 30mins-2hours), determine if a battery is bad, measure internal resistance, and indicate the current charge level of batteries.

PIC Programmer (03092002)

Simple PIC programmer based on David Tait's classic PIC programmer. The main reason for chosing the PIC microcontroller was the open-source nature of many programs associated with the device. This project invonlves the burning of boards and soldering the parts for the PIC microcontroller.

Solenoids (29082002)

Build solenoids for locomotion. A very simple solenoid design has been devised by D. Baird. He states that "the idea is to wrap a hollow core with wire and put and wrap a ferromagnetic material around the wire. This will create a device that sucks iron right into its center."

Microcontrollers (29082002)

Invest in many PIC16F871 microcontrollers for control and testing. This year, we have decided to use the PIC microcontroller for cost-effectiveness.

Project Files

Adventures In Robotics