Old announcements

From Maslab 2006

Contents 1 February 6 2 February 5 3 February 3 4 February 1 5 January 31 6 Janurary 30 7 January 26 8 January 24 9 January 23 10 January 21 11 January 19 12 January 17 13 January 16 14 January 13 15 January 12 16 January 11 17 January 10 18 January 9 19 January 7 20 December 29 21 December 28 22 December 1

February 6

• Sign up to demo your robot at the MIT Museum's Engineering Week event!

February 5

• The final paper is due on February 8.
• Add your resume to your user page; they will be distributed to sponsors.
• Help out on staff next year!
• If you upload files to the wiki, please give them a descriptive name to avoid namespace collision (such as Team Seventeen robot.jpg instead of Robot.jpg).
• Also, MediaWiki can automatically resize your images, so you should upload high-resolution original pictures and (if necessary) scale them down with [[Image:Team Seventeen robot.jpg|200px]] (more information).

February 3

• The final contest is today!
• Everyone did a great job, but special congratulations to Team Three (First Place, 8 points), Team Eight (Engineering Award), Team Six (Best Dressed), and Team Thirteen (Best Eye-Candy).

February 1

• There will be line of sight connectedness between barcodes.
• Balls which have passed through goals will not be artificially removed. Your robot must be able to recognize these balls and ignore them.
• For a ball to count as going through a goal, its center of mass must be through the plane of the goal.
• You will be given time Friday afternoon before the contest to charge your battery and work on the cosmetic decorations.
• Lab and the Shop will be open all night tonight.

January 31

• The final paper is not due until February 8; focus on your robots right now.

Janurary 30

• See Course calendar for updates on impounding, the final contest, and clean up day.
• See the FAQ forum for tips on setting Java runtime flags to optimize performance of your code.
• Program Info. Identify your robot and double check your team info.
• Mock Contest Two today! All teams should report to 26-100 at 1pm.
• Contest rules have been updated for the powerball.

January 26

• Mock Contest One today! All teams should report to 26-100 at 1pm.
• A new firmware update (revision 399) has been successfully tested by three teams, and may finally fix the issues with erratic encoder and gyroscope readings. To receive this update, come to lab when Anders or Dheera is staffing (see the lab staffing schedule). Most teams were given revision 393 earlier, so these teams should update again.

January 24

• See the FAQ forum for info on making your gyroscope more accurate (removing noise injection).

January 23

• We highly encourage changing over to smaller batteries since we suspect the new batteries may be easily fusing the GlobeTek power supplies. Please be careful and do not charge a low battery using the orc. See staff about exchanging batteries.

January 21

• The power goal will be identified by the barcode green-black-green-black-green.

January 19

• Go to 26-100 today before 4:00pm to test your bots on the field.
• Meet in 38-500 at 5:45pm for the ITA Dinner. All teams are expected to attend.
• You need to change the ESSID to MIT to use your bots over wireless outside of building 38.
• Avoid shutting down your PC abruptly with the power switch. You can damage your data and filesystem that way. You can properly shutdown over SSH with sudo halt or by selecting the "Power Off" option on the OrcShell menu.

January 17

• If you're interested in looking at the source code to the OrcBoard libraries, type apt-get source orc-user on the bot; the code will install into orc-user-version/jorc/src/org/orcboard. Similarly, you can get the source to the Maslab libraries with apt-get source libmaslab-java.
• Remember to have your presentation for tomorrow's Design Review ready!
• If you are having problems with your wheels bowing inwards too much, you can improve this by taking some of the white zipties available in the materials area of the shop and and running it around the motor through the back two holes in your wheel bracket (or punch more holes in the wheel bracket if you need those screw locations).
• maslab.jar has been updated (version 1.0.2-5); it includes orc-user revision 379, with an API for motor acceleration, Servo.idle(), and partial fixes for the gyroscope issues that some teams have been having. Your robots will receive this update on their next reboot.

January 16

• Take care of your power supplies. In particular, do not use them to charge batteries with low charge. A number of supplies have broken, and the staff has few options left if more break.
• The description of the playing field has been updated.
• The mapping lecture is tomorrow at noon, in 35-225.

January 13

• Finish Checkpoint Two today.
• Mounting instructions for the encoders have been added. See them if you already have a kit.

January 12

• See Day Four for important instructions!
• The Checkpoint Two rules have been updated. You are no longer required to do anything with the ball, only find it and drive up to it. (Hacking on a "possession" mechanism is not a good use of your time.)
• Remember that there are playing areas in 34-501 that you are free to work in. If you find the 38 playing area full, we recommend using them.
• Details about Checkpoint Three, which is due Wednesday (the same day as the Design Review) have been posted.
• We have very few spare power supplies, so do not lose yours, and remember to label it.
• If your battery's charge runs low (say, 1.5V lower than the peak value), you should see a staffer to get a heavier-duty power supply to recharge it. You can damage your power supply by trying to charge a battery with too little charge left in it.

January 11

• Finish Checkpoint One today.
• The lab area in 38-500 is now available for student use from 9 am to 11:45 pm M-R, 9-5 F, 12-11:45 Sundays. However the shop will only be open when the lab is staffed by Maslab.
• The robot size limit has been increased to 14x14x14 inches but it must still fit in the box.
• Please label your power supply, battery, etc. with your team number.
• The encoder acrylic pattern mounts are a different size from the wheels and don't fit them. The staff is working on this issue.

January 10

• See Day Two for important instructions!
• Soldering irons and other tools are available for purchase from the 6.270 shop (upstairs in 38-6).
• Make sure that you read the OrcManual when preparing sensors.
• When unplugging the battery, pull on the plastic connector, not on the wire, to avoid breaking the connector. Note that you need to push on the tab while you're pulling it out from the orcboard.
• If the battery is not plugged when stored, cover the leads in insulator such as duct tape or electrical tape. They are lead-acid and can source an enormous amount of current, so take great care to never short them.
• Getting IR input (it's not in the java docs yet): see FAQ
• Keep your own frequent backups of all your work, especially anything you write or store on the Eden. This is very important.

January 9

• Wheels: the drill press is useful for getting the hubs in. Lock washers go on the inside of the hub.
• See Day One for important instructions!
• On the orcpad, the short lead of the LED should go towards the flat part of the picture (the part nearest the LED label). See the blackboard near the TA office for a picture.

January 7

• API documentation for this year's libraries has been posted. (Due to reorganizations, the rgbToHsv() function has moved to org.orcboad.camera.ImageUtil.rgbToHsv(); the tutorial has been corrected again.)

December 29

• An error in the image processing tutorial has been corrected: you should use maslab.camera.Camera.rgbToHsv() instead of maslab.util.ImageUtil.RGBtoHSV(), which does not exist.

December 28

• The Java image processing tutorial and odometry tutorial have been posted. These tutorials are a good way to start working on your robot before IAP.

December 1

• Wiki installed.