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Bits n Bytes
2007
Welcome to Bits
n Bytes.
Bits n Bytes is the place to know and see
whats new in the group and/or anywhere else.
| January |
| Well its now 2007, and to kick things off, the Transformers
live action movie is due out this year, on July 4th,
American Independance day. Wow, the new trailer is
fantastic, though the Citroen C4 isn't in it.
We, the many fans from the 80's, now 20 somethings are
anxiously waiting for this movie to arrive.
|
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| On our regular meets on Friday at Next Window, we
sometimes gather round the mad scientist, also known as
Paul. On this particular night he treated us to home
made plasma, by using a glass bell jar, a large flat
piece of alumnium, a fridge compressor and a 15KV neon
transformer.
Intially there was a vacuum inside the jar, then he
moved on to butane then Flux Cleaner.
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| Last year, we also did some fun things that you
wouldn't 'normally' do. For example, have you ever
wanted to know how a regualr LED would survive being
zapped at 15KV using a neon transformer regulated at
30mA?
The LED was still functioning afterwards, can you
believe it?
No its nor arcing inside the LED, nor is the LED doing
half wave rectification.
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| Another thing we guys did last year as part of what
we do on Fridays, is pump 18A through a pencil lead. Why?
Because Keith was itching to test out his brand new
18A DC power supply.
You wanna know what happened?
Watch the movie and you'll find out.
|
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| Towards the end of the month, Keith and Paul together
made and programmed an X Y plotter
robot for use in calibrating touch screens at Next
Window. It is built using two identical flatbed
scanners and built in just 3 days, from scratch.
With future plans to have a Z axis added onto the
plotter at some point.
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| Speaking of plotters, Paul found this link to
instructions on making your very own rapid prototyping
machine also known as a 3D printer. With a little inginuity
and some number 8 fencing wire.
Also your limited to the various materials you can
use, but as what was said, a bit of inginuity will allow
for some pretty amazing things.
On the site, which is US based, they claim that you
can build it for just a few thousand dollars, using their
drawings.
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| Keith reads magazines from another member of the
RoboNZ group, that has a subscription to the SERVO
magazine. Its actually me "Gary". This
magazine is full of tips, stories and everything related.
In December's issue, under the mind iron section,
Keith found this article
which he found very inspiring.
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 www.servomagazine.com
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| To top off the end of the month, we have a surprise
for you all. If you don't know already RoboNz will be
hosting a robotics competition this year.
Something for everyone, and all skill levels.
Quicktrip, Pathfinder and Domination are just a sample
of what you can enter into.
Are you ready for a challenge, then go here for more infomation and full rules.
We're expecting Domination to be the highlight of the
competition, as it is the only contest seeing two robots
compete at the same time on the same course.
Get cracking, you don't want to miss out becuse you
hadn't finished the software.
The competition date is not final and will be updated.
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