Links, Regs, Links, Regs, Links, Regs, ...Vorentoe!

Stiff competition was at the order of the day...

All our codenames have been chosen and name badges have been printed - thank you Stehan! (More about Stehan's hard work later). Therefor, from this moment on, all the members and myself shall be referred to by our codenames. Both here and at our club meetings. NOTE TO SELF: I'm sure Floppy Drive was standing on his toes here on the right - he can't be taller than I am. :-(

On the agenda for today was:

1. Taking register
2. Outstanding minutes
3. Outstanding permission slips (yes, despite my efforts and begging, I'm still waiting for 2 more permission slips) ai, ai, ai.
4. Name badges & thanking Gigabyte for his dedication
5. ThinkQuest logins
6. Robotics Lesson part 2

Unfortunately attendance was not up to scratch tonight with 3 members (iRobot; Shift; and Graphics Card) being absent without being excused. Parents and members are reminded about the rules of the club and the permission slips which were signed. Repeated failure to attend without excuses being made will not be tolerated and club membership may be revoked.

A beeeeeeeeg thank you goes out to Gigabyte for the design, layout, typing up, printing, and basically making our name badges which boasts our codenames, real names, and the club logo. Our name badges look really good. Baie dankie Gigabyte.

There will NOT be another computer club meeting on the 20th of September as I said initially. It was brought to my attention that the grade 6 learners only return from their outdoor education on the 20th and will surely be in need of some rest. This was probably the last meeting of the SCC for this term. The next date will be advised.

ROBOTICS - Part 2

We recapped on what we learnt about robots during the last meeting before being introduced to the "prettiest and sweetest" little robot called Kismet. Kismet consists of just a head and a neck but, in those two body parts are 21 motors controlling her facial expressions, and 4 cameras which detect movement and senses human facial expressions. Her vision alone is controlled by 9 computers. She can listen, talk, blink, smile, and do many more cool things. She will lean forward when interested/curious and retract when she "feels" threatened. She will smile and raise her eyebrows when praised and bow her head and sulk when scolded.

Teams were formed and given a worksheet with three everyday objects and the question was asked: "Am I a robot" for all of them. Members had to use what was learnt and consider 5 requirements to determine if each of the 3 objects could be classified as being a robot or not.

We watched videos of industrial robots, one with the sole purpose of welding car parts and the other one spray painted cars on an assembly line. We also witnessed what was claimed to be the fastest robot. This video made it clear that robots have an major advantage over humans when it comes to speed and accuracy, especially when doing a repetitive jobs.

Navigate your robot - activity

Members teamed up in pairs for this activity. One was chosen to act as a "robot". The "robot" was blindfolded and was directed through an obstacle course by the "programmer" using only 3 predefined Afrikaans words (Links, Regs, & Vorentoe) and 1 "special command" which they could decide on beforehand to make the task easier and faster. Any other words from the programmer on his vantage point, or if the robot bumped into any obstacles led to immediate disqualification. To make this task more interesting the element of time was thrown into the equation. G-Force and Floppy Drive walked away with the prizes (2 packets of Liquorice Allsorts) this time with a record time of 1 minute and 4 seconds and incredible accuracy.

This activity made it clear that it was not so easy to have a robot do exactly what you want it to do when it can't think for itself and has to rely on our instructions. We take for granted how easy everyday tasks are when motion, and navigation comes from one person but it is a completely different story when we split the motion and navigation up into two entities who are now dependant on each other to get the job done.

Makes one think, doesn't it?

This is Motherboard signing off.