Contacting the
Seattle Robotics Society

The best way to get in contact with the SRS is via email. You will get the fastest response via email.

Send your email to

The Mailing List: http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/SeattleRobotics/ -- this is a discussion group with many enthusiastic and knowledgeable robot builders; this is a great place to ask all your robotics questions. (See below for joining the list server.)

Membership in the SRS

The Seattle Robotics Society accepts members worldwide. All we ask is that you be interested in robotics and related technology. We have suspended our yearly dues since we no longer print a paper version of the Encoder. Someday we will reinstate the dues to cover the cost of our website. You are free to visit our website at any time, and we encourage you to make it to the monthly meetings when you are in the area.

Join our email list server

Our email list server is a great way to communicate with all of the world wide members of the Seattle Robotics Society. We have members from all over the world who routinely contribute great information.

The purpose of this list is to encourage the discussion of robotics and related technologies. We have very few rules. They are summarized as DO and DON'T lists.

DOs:
Contribute anything technical that you feel is appropriate for the group.
Share cool websites or other interesting information to the group.
Help others find resources and information on robotics.
Conduct other club business as needed.

DON'Ts:
Flames, personal attacks, or other poor conduct is NOT allowed on our list.
Pure commercial postings are NOT allowed, or are spam or very nearly spam like postings.

If you would like to subscribe using the egroups website, which allows you to set various options like digest mode, etc, use the following form.

Monday Night Chat

The Seattle Robotics Society hosts a "Monday Night Chat" each week.

Starting at 7pm Pacific Daylight Time each Monday, the SRS holds an informal chat session. This is a great opportunity to come ask live questions of the SRS members, seek help for technical problems, or just chat about stuff. (This channel is always available, and sometimes has activity at other times as well.)

Note: we have moved to a new server, irc.freenode.net. Their help page is at http://freenode.net/faq.shtml.

Directions:

The chat requires that you use an Internet Relay Chat (IRC) program. Details on finding one are below.

For you experts, the chat is held on irc.freenode.net in the #SeattleRobotics group.

Users of Chatzilla and various other clients may be able to simply use the link to irc://irc.freenode.net/#SeattleRobotics.

If you have problems, you should post a message on the SRS Yahoo group discussion.

Windows Users

You can download Microsoft Chat from the http://windowsupdate.microsoft.com/

Otherwise, a third party program is available for a fee:

1. Get the mIRC program from http://www.mirc.com/get.html   Run its setup program. Start the mIRC program
2. It will popup a small window titled mIRC Options. Click on the Connect listing in the 'Category box'. You should see a control that says IRC Servers with a set of small buttons down the right side (Add, Edit, Delete, Sort).
3. Press the Add button to add a new entry. A small popup called mIRC Add Server should appear. Fill in the text boxes as follows.
   
   Description: SRS
   IRC Server: irc.freenode.net
   Ports: 6667
   Group: #seattlerobotics
   There is no password.
   
4. Click the Add button in this mIRC Add Server dialog.
5. You have now returned to the mIRC Options window. You should see the edit boxes with IRC Servers: #seattlerobotics and a Seattle Robotics below it. There should also be a Connect to IRC Server.
6. In the reset of the form, fill in your Name, Email Address. The Nickname is often your first name and initial. Please use a Nickname that identifies you to the rest of the group.
7. Press the Connect to IRC server button in the middle of the dialog. This will connect you to the chat server. This has been known to take a few moments, up to a minute or so, depending on how busy the server is.
8. Once connected, another popup will appear. You can type in #seattlerobotics and press the join key. You can also go to the status window, and type /join #seattlerobotics.
9. If you are the first person for the night, you will be alone in the room! Thats OK, just wait for others to join. Be sure you have the correct spelling.

Mac Users

A suggestion has been made for the Colloquy client. Its setup should be similar to the mIRC directions above.

U.S. Postal Mail

We would really prefer you send email. See above. If you would like to send a real paper letter to the Seattle Robotics Society, we use the following address

Seattle Robotics Society

P.O. Box 1714

Duvall, WA 98019-1714

If possible, please include an email address that you can be reached at. All materials sent via US Mail become property of the Seattle Robotics Society unless prior arrangements have been made for the return of said materials.