Small autonomous robotic vehicle competitions in Southern California?

kemprof

The Santa Ana High School·Engineering Club·has been using Parallax microcontrollers and servos for about 12 years for our robotic vehicles.· Our vehicles are similar in size and design constraints to those in micromouse competitions, but our events are quite a bit different.·· We're looking for some school clubs, either high school or community college level, in the Los Angeles-Orange County area·who'd like to compete with us.· Take a look at our site at www.sahsrobotics.org .·· There's a video of our last competition, which best describes what we do, and contact info if you'd like to discuss getting together.

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Kemprof ,· Santa Ana High School

www.sahsrobotics.org

Whit

Kemprof,

Great site and video. What an impressive program. I wish I could have done that when I was in High School - Of course in the mid 1970's that was not really possible - was it?

After college, I got my first Apple ][noparse][[/noparse] with 48K of RAM and upgraded to a fantastic 64K!

Now as an old codger, robotics is really a fantastic·hobby -·What fun!

Good luck with all your students and your work. Hope you get some good competition.


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Whit+


"We keep moving forward, opening new doors, and doing new things, because we're curious and curiosity keeps leading us down new paths." - Walt Disney

Post Edited (Whit) : 7/29/2008 12:28:56 AM GMT

Larry Sutherland

I 2nd that....A friend of mine for a graduation gift got a Texas Instrument calculator. All I had was a slide rule, 8 track player in my 69 El Camino, and Heath Kits.

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·Right_Uderstanding, Attitude, Speech, Action, Livelihood, Effort, Concentration, and Awareness

Capt. Quirk

We are looking for contests with other schools, But we have just recently formed and not ready for a competition yet. Our Club is the Riverside City College (RCC) Competitive robot club. Our goal is to to use RCC as a meeting place for RCC students, students from 3-5 local High Schools and UC-Riverside students from their engineering school.

Perhaps we can arrange something in the future.

Bill

Post Edited (Capt. Quirk) : 7/29/2008 8:39:00 AM GMT

SRLM

Hi. I am an incoming freshman at UC Riverside, and would like to join a robotics club. However, when I looked at the UC website, they didn't have anything of the sort! I was shocked: how can we get the education and retain it without practice? Anyway, let me know how to join and I would be glad to. Specifically, I was hoping to be able to compete in the AUVSI International Aerial Robotics Competition and the AUVSI Student competition. These are big events, and I think a team would best be suited to compete. Plus, they are really cool: an unmanned helicopter or plane flying around autonomously! Fun...

Anyway, let me know how to get in contact with you (kemprof). By the way, my major at UCR is Computer Science.

Cody

kemprof

Hey Cody, I'm a bit too far from you to help out, but send a message to Bill (aka Capt. Quirk , click on his name.above, for private message)....he's in your neighborhood, and also send a message to Prof. Martin Mason ( mmason@mtsac.edu) at Mt.SanAntonioCollege. He runs a robotics club there, also not too far from Riverside.

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Kemprof ,· Santa Ana High School

www.sahsrobotics.org

kemprof

Cody, .... a couple additions to the last. 1) It seems everyone's on vacation -- people who normally reply promptly may take a couple of weeks or more ... keep trying with Martin Mason at SAC to get some communication going ... he DOES have a group that will compete with you. But it seems college professors have a lot of e-mail traffic and insufficient time to respond to it all. Just keep trying... don't be apoligetic ... you won't Smile him off ... you just have to keepl trying to bull your way to front of the e-message line. He's a good guy, relatively young, physics professor.
2) New to a university? Here's how it works with clubs: they come...they go, because when the guys who drive a club graduate, the club's over. Most things of this sort are student run. I'm serious... no robotics club at UCR? ... just start one ... that's how it works at a university. They'll be some one who overseas student clubs and activities; find out who it is (browse the UCR web stie) go visit him/her in their office to get some advice how best to start a club, how to get word out that you're forming one, and line up some competitive events with other schools. Mason at SAC and Capt. Quirk, 3-posts above will be your best bet.
3) Go to www.rssc.com(?) www.rssc.org(?) , Robotics Society of So. Calif.. This group meets twice monthly at Cal. Stat Univ., Fullerton. Prof. Mason is secretary of this group. It's kind of a mix of young and old, the regulars are a bunch of older retired guys , but they always plan some types of competitive events through the year, and there's a lot of experience here. Good Luck!

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Kemprof ,· Santa Ana High School

www.sahsrobotics.org

SRLM

Thanks for your suggestions. I am really excited about college level robotics, and possibly getting some sort of funding so that relatively big projects can be done (such as a UAV), and for the fun of competing in events with other schools. It's always neat to see how other people do things. But thanks for the leads. Although robotics people must be good at electronics due to the nature of the hobby, they never can seem to get good web information out there or search engine hits...