San Diego City Robotics http://sdcrobotics.org Onward and Downward! Sun, 18 Jul 2010 13:37:04 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.3.3 en Cuyamaca College: Robotics Expo 09′ http://sdcrobotics.org/2009/10/13/cuyamaca-college-robotics-expo-09 http://sdcrobotics.org/2009/10/13/cuyamaca-college-robotics-expo-09#comments Tue, 13 Oct 2009 11:08:13 +0000 admin http://sdcrobotics.org/2009/10/13/cuyamaca-college-robotics-expo-09 For the second year in a row the SDCR Group has attended an Educational Robotics Expo put on by near by Cuyamaca College. At the expo we get the opportunity to do several things. First of all we get to show the public what we do and explain to them why an Autonomous robotic competition can be fun. We get to show the next generation of robotics lovers what comes next after some of the competitions they’ve done before. FIRST, Bot Ball, and several other competitions were also represented by different clubs and organizations. Also some industry was around as Seabotix, SpaWar, and Servo Magazine were there as well.664

There was a sumo-bot competition as well as a display of a unique robot chess game that was played on a large board with middle schoolers representing the white pieces and the black pieces being robots that as a group decided what move to make. 709

It was an interesting day for all, and the group is already looking forward to next years Expo. For more pictures you can check out the photo section of the site.

]]> http://sdcrobotics.org/2009/10/13/cuyamaca-college-robotics-expo-09/feed 2009 Competition, Some Video… http://sdcrobotics.org/2009/10/09/2009-competition-some-video http://sdcrobotics.org/2009/10/09/2009-competition-some-video#comments Sat, 10 Oct 2009 05:42:25 +0000 admin http://sdcrobotics.org/2009/10/09/2009-competition-some-video Here are a couple Video’s from the 2009 Competition…

A short one of the Course…

Our First Run…

Our Final Run…

Enjoy..

]]> http://sdcrobotics.org/2009/10/09/2009-competition-some-video/feed Website Updates and Development http://sdcrobotics.org/2009/10/02/website-updates-and-development http://sdcrobotics.org/2009/10/02/website-updates-and-development#comments Sat, 03 Oct 2009 07:32:34 +0000 admin http://sdcrobotics.org/2009/10/02/website-updates-and-development Several New pages are being added to the website. Some of them will not be accessible to the general public as they go thru an internal auditing phase. Once that is complete the page’s password protection will be turned off. In this way we can bring you content at a much faster rate and insure that everything is ship shape.

I have added the AUV-Concepts page and expanded the Vehicale page and section. More to come as time permits.

]]> http://sdcrobotics.org/2009/10/02/website-updates-and-development/feed This Just in…. Results from the 2009 Competition… http://sdcrobotics.org/2009/08/30/this-just-in-results-from-the-2009-competition http://sdcrobotics.org/2009/08/30/this-just-in-results-from-the-2009-competition#comments Sun, 30 Aug 2009 10:01:28 +0000 admin http://sdcrobotics.org/2009/08/30/this-just-in-results-from-the-2009-competition Results and Ranking for the 2009 12th annual AUVC

1. Cornell
2. UVIC
3. URI
4. UCF
5. UT @ Dallas
6. USC
7. FAU
8. U Maryland
9. Kyushu Institute of Technology
10. ETS
11. Amador Valley HS
12. iBotics
13. US Naval Academy
14. Delhi College of Engineering
15. San Diego City Robotics
16. NC State U
17. Saint George’s School
18. VT
19. U Toronto MDA
20. UF
21. ARVP
22. MIT
23. SPSU
24. Embry Riddle
25. KAIST
26. UWF
27. U Ottawa
28. Pacific Nautilus
29. U Colorado @ Denver
30. McGill U

Best new team: St. George’s School
Most with the Least: FAU
Best technical paper: Kyushu
TSA Award: Embry Riddle

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The competition was as always: fun, stressful, hot n’ dirty, wet and wild, and very good experience for any engineer. This year our team was able to cleanly qualify on the second day of practice. In each of our two Heats we were able to manuver straight and thru the gate. Our depth and course correction code was definietly working better than in last years competition and the vision and sonar were a lot closer to integration than ever before. While our 15th place finish might seem a bit disappointing, It is important to note that teams this year were more successful than ever in completing the course. Cornell’s final run attempted every task and except for missing the targets with thier droppers was successful in EVERY task. I’m sure competitors realize just how amazing an accomplishment that is.

Anyway watch this site for updates as I’ll be doing so with a lot more regularity than we have in the past.
–Max G. Roshensky, Webmaster at Large.

]]> http://sdcrobotics.org/2009/08/30/this-just-in-results-from-the-2009-competition/feed Our Project as a City College Class http://sdcrobotics.org/2008/02/23/our-project-as-a-sd-city-college-class http://sdcrobotics.org/2008/02/23/our-project-as-a-sd-city-college-class#comments Sun, 24 Feb 2008 05:36:58 +0000 Chris http://sdcrobotics.org/2008/02/23/our-project-as-a-sd-city-college-class As of this Spring semester, San Diego City College is offering a course in cooperation with our project. The course title is “Building Educational Bridges Through Robotics Competitions” and takes place during our usual meeting times, Saturdays 9am-11:30am.

The course has already proven to be very positive for our project. Although we try hard to reach out to students to join our project, we are not able to reach everyone. Having the course listed in the San Diego City College course catalog reaches many more students that we were not yet able to tell about our project. This semester we have added about half a dozen new members to our team as a direct result of having the class in the course catalog.

While being enrolled in the course is in no way a requirement for participation in the project, it is highly encouraged. Enrolling in the course makes our team members’ participation in our project appear on their official transcripts.

We would like to thank The San Diego City College Engineering Department, Dean Paulette Hopkins, Prof. Bob Priutt and Prof. Ron Worley for making this happen. Thank You!

]]> http://sdcrobotics.org/2008/02/23/our-project-as-a-sd-city-college-class/feed Final Run at 2007 AUV Competition http://sdcrobotics.org/2008/02/19/our-final-run-at-the-2007-auv-competition http://sdcrobotics.org/2008/02/19/our-final-run-at-the-2007-auv-competition#comments Tue, 19 Feb 2008 19:41:01 +0000 Chris http://sdcrobotics.org/2008/02/19/our-final-run-at-the-2007-auv-competition This is a video of our final run at the 2007 10th annual ONR & AUVSI Autonomous Underwater Vehicle Competition. In our last run we just barely missed surfacing in an octagon. Had we come up only a few inches in the direction of the octagon, we would have been in the finals.

The song that is playing during the video has the prominent line “What are the odds?”. Appropriately, this same song just happened to be playing over the competition’s PA system during the runs shown in the video. As we were only able to get so close by dead reckoning, we almost beat the odds by surfacing in the nearest octagon.

]]> http://sdcrobotics.org/2008/02/19/our-final-run-at-the-2007-auv-competition/feed Site Redesign Finished http://sdcrobotics.org/2008/01/20/site-redesign-finished http://sdcrobotics.org/2008/01/20/site-redesign-finished#comments Mon, 21 Jan 2008 07:56:32 +0000 Chris http://sdcrobotics.org/2008/01/20/site-redesign-finished I finally was able to complete the new site. My hope is that this site gives us a better platform to showcase our project and sponsors. If you have any problems please let us know.

I decided to use Wordpress due the large amount of extremely useful plugins and large selection of themes. In accordance with the theme license, here is the Wordpress Theme with my modifications.

]]> http://sdcrobotics.org/2008/01/20/site-redesign-finished/feed Zeplin Concept Animation http://sdcrobotics.org/2007/09/10/zeplin-concept-animation http://sdcrobotics.org/2007/09/10/zeplin-concept-animation#comments Mon, 10 Sep 2007 17:21:37 +0000 Chris http://sdcrobotics.org/2007/09/10/zeplin-concept-animation This is the new design that we are leaning towards. It is based loosely on the idea of a blimp or airship with a single thruster in the front. In the coming months we will be building and testing it.

This is a short rough CAD-sketch and animation of the design.

(more…)

]]> http://sdcrobotics.org/2007/09/10/zeplin-concept-animation/feed Heavy Math http://sdcrobotics.org/2007/07/23/heavy_math http://sdcrobotics.org/2007/07/23/heavy_math#comments Mon, 23 Jul 2007 12:43:00 +0000 Chris http://sdcrobotics.org/1999/11/30/12 The linked document outlines some of the mathematics required for analysing incoming audio signals arriving at multiple sensors (hydrophones). The challenge is to compare accurately the arrival times of the incoming signal with respect to some internal reference signal and from those results determine the differences in arrival times. In preference to this pure math approach, many implementers use approximations to simply get “close”, but sometimes that’s just not good enough. Here’s how to do it right.

heavy-math.pdf

]]> http://sdcrobotics.org/2007/07/23/heavy_math/feed Hydrophones Mathematical Model http://sdcrobotics.org/2007/06/23/hydrophones-mathematical-model http://sdcrobotics.org/2007/06/23/hydrophones-mathematical-model#comments Sat, 23 Jun 2007 11:51:52 +0000 Chris http://sdcrobotics.org/2007/06/23/hydrophones-mathematical-model The linked file presents the mathematical model underlying the direction finding algorithms as implemented in the simulation program and the actual vehicle. Note that without an enormous budget, nobody in the competition can determine exactly where the pinger is. The best that can be done is to determine the approximate direction.

Hydrophone Model

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