Milestone one and May

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The Past month has been really busy for us all at Grue. With orders disappearing, the robot’s first milestone and supervising people that are new to electronics.

Currently the attendance numbers are lower than what they started at, this is due to the power supply project; which has been put on hold while we fine toothcomb the university. Until we find the lost package with all the components in it.

Our plan for the next few weeks is a competition and all year levels can attend. This competition will have prizes for first place and participation. I’ll cover that in a little more detail later in this blog.

Sean one of the staff members has just acquired a 3D printer where he must meet a quota per week, which is great news for all the Grue members. We, Grue are able to print off various items for a rather low cost.

Hans Gruebot
Griffith Uni Nathan campus’s Automated Robot.
Grue has entered into an automated robotics competition sponsored by national instruments Australia. On the 30th of April we had completed the first Milestone of the competition where we had to have one sensor and one motor working. This was not as easy as it sounds; none of us have ever used “Lab View” before. The software is rather interesting to use, but I personally don’t like how disjointed it feels from traditional coding. Here is the video for the completion of Milestone one.

The Competition
The idea of this competition is to create an automatic racecar that can navigate the course as quickly as possible. Each group will be lent an Arduino within the labs because of the simplicity to code, a DC motor and some sensors. The rest is up to the groups to design and create, this will include.

  • Design the chassis with 3D software. With 123D or FreeCAD
  • Program the Arduino to be the brain of the car
  • Aesthetics

This competition will be held until the end of the mid-year break.

Cheers

Edit: We’re also open for suggestions or ideas that people have.

Welcome + Plan for April

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It’s great to see the website up and running, next is to get the content rolling in.

The plan for April is a great one for everyone doing the practical electronics course are Griffith. This is the first course that requires a student to apply their knowledge of circuits.

5th: Altium Course (Schematics) (Sean)
12th: Normal Grue (Mid semester break)
19th: Altium Course (PCB) (Sean)
26th: Working on Current Projects (Subject to change)

Both of the Altium Courses have limited seats (off the top of my heads it’s 16) Sean will be teaching the class on the basics and some of the more advanced parts of Altium, how to reduce the lag and the all important keyboard short cuts. Week one will be focused around designing schematics and how to add parts to library files.

Week two will focus on the PCB making and possibly the creation of 3d bodies. 3D bodies allow for a very accurate representation of the project that you are currently modelling.

If you’re not apart of the Altium Course, Normal Grue will be in -1.06.

Currently the Power supplies have hit a rather major road block, The components have been ordered more than two weeks ago and they have arrived at the Uni. But where they are. No one knows.

The second project that has been started and is a function generator, There is a issue with costs but it’s still in it’s early development. So that will hopefully change over time.

I’m looking at interest here.
Who would like to aid in the development of a down to basic ALU (Arithmetic logic unit) i.e making a basic calculator out of logic chips. Could be quite challenging.

Edit: Thanks to Casey, he is providing the bandwidth and server for this website.