Meeting Chat
00:19:02 Robert: Replying to “It was approved 2 ye…”
But science programs are less familiar with getting government money
00:21:08 Robert: Washington State Science and Engineering Fair.WSSEF – Promoting Future Scientists and Engineers March 29th. Has a spot available for Science groups to present
00:22:13 Robert: https://www.meetup.com/snoco-makers/events/305575654/
00:22:52 Robert: Feb 1st Robot Fighting in Olympia
00:23:21 Robert: Monroe Event NW Model Hobby Expo – Battle Robotics
00:24:04 Robert: Home – Sunnycrest Elementary School
00:24:59 Robert: Robot Fighting Olympia Feb 1 Robot Combat Events
00:25:47 Robert: https://www.meetup.com/build-it-with-arduino/
00:27:51 James Newton: FYI, On the actual meetup posts for this meeting, each one links to the youtube channel, and all those links are wrong; they alway have a number at the end that doesn’t belong there. The correct link is:
https://www.youtube.com/@srsclips-n-more
00:30:23 Robert: Free Money in King County 70 Million for Science Programs!
00:32:34 James Newton: I have some sad and happy news. The Haddington Dynamics group I’ve worked for over many years, has been defunded by the multi-national that purchased us 4 years ago. We made the robot they wanted, but they now don’t have the money to produce it in quantity. Really sad: The IP lawers stomped on an attempt at VC funding to purchase the IP so the last 4 years of work are gone.😢 But the prior open source robots are still there. And I’m looking for work (see my profile):
https://github.com/JamesNewton
00:33:11 Robert: Monday January 27, 2025 7:00 PM Portland Area Robotics meeting Portland Robotics – Home
00:33:46 James Newton: The happy news is that I’ve had time to work on making the (amazing) encoder easier to make, and I’ve succeeded in producing a version with 100,000 clicks per revolution which works via a PiPico:
https://github.com/JamesNewton/HybridDiskEncoder/tree/master?tab=readme-ov-file#hybrid-disk-encoder
00:37:56 Robert: RBNV – Robot Builders Night Virtual – Tuesday January 21, 2025 5:30 PM PST RBNV – Robot Builders Night Virtual – January 21, 2025 – dprg.org
00:38:30 Chas Ihler: This was my share — maybe related to @James Newton ’s interest in other work. https://www.co.bot
00:42:34 James Newton: And I’m working on expanding that into a full servo system. My thesis is that very simple e.g. not even PID, but just positional P, works fine, (without I and D terms or even more complex feedback) when the time delay caused by “low” encoder resolution is resolved by ultra sensitive encoders like this. TIme will tell. More at:
https://github.com/JamesNewton/HybridDiskEncoder/issues/9
00:45:38 Robert: Sunnycrest Elementary, home of the Roadrunners, is located in Kent’s West Hill & Midway neighborhood,Home – Sunnycrest Elementary School
00:45:51 Colin L.: I run into that all the time, Chas, but with parts companies or tooling.
00:46:14 Colin L.: It’s about profit and who’s in control making bad decisions.
00:47:49 Robert: Start a Non Profit Science Program. Seriously. The Funds are Available in King County.
00:47:56 Colin L.: Reacted to “Start a Non Profit S…” with 👍
00:48:15 Robert: Seriously. Non Profits are the future!
00:48:36 James Newton: Reacted to “Seriously. Non Pro…” with ❤️
00:48:44 Robert: Doors Open King County
00:49:01 Robert: Seriously there is LOTS of money to be made in non profits.
00:49:14 Colin L.: Also maybe have an organizational chart where the larger company can come in and focus on some specific area, but if they go out, then the organization is still operational.
00:49:59 Robert: I know many people who have become rich on non profits.
00:50:08 Colin L.: Reacted to “I know many people w…” with 👍
00:50:33 Robert: Money is there. The question is who will get to spend it. Doors Open King County
00:50:56 Robert: Science is the first thing mentioned
00:52:17 Robert: 70 million given out to non profits in King County last year.
00:53:20 Robert: https://www.trossenrobotics.com/aloha-kits
00:53:53 Chas Ihler: Steve: Joseph Cole mentioned he would be willing to do a discussion on Aloha Robotics.
00:53:57 James Newton: Robots trained via “teleoperation” (from directly behind) with a “spatial” neural network. Like a self-driving car, the camera feed goes into the NN, which has been shown what movements of the arms to make when it sees that picture in combination with a given text prompt. Just watch the videos and be amazed.
https://mobile-aloha.github.io
00:54:04 Robert: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VUxFhtGWD7w
00:55:03 Chas Ihler: seattleroboticsociety@gmail.com .. but if that fails email chas@snocomakers.org
00:59:37 Joseph Cole: https://www.steamcircuit.com/event-details/silicon-forest-tech-summit-advancing-technology-building-a-global-community
01:02:10 James Newton: And the key here is that NN need MASSIVE number of training examples, which existed for ChatGPT (the entire internet) but does not (did not) exist for robots. Aloha spent many hours collecting training data, but that is expensive and costly. So doing it with a simulator is excellent because it reduces cost and can run at faster rates given more computation. But traditional sims can’t be tuned to better match reality past a certain point, so a NN based simulator removes that issue: You can do 100 or 1000 or more training cycles of the robot NN in the simulator NN and then validate one in the real world and update the sim NN to better match the actual outcome.
https://github.com/Genesis-Embodied-AI/Genesis
01:04:36 James Newton: Replying to “https://www.steamc…”
I wish I could be in that area or that the conference was streamed. Looks like it would be wonderful. If you attend, please share any insights or highlights?
01:04:53 Joseph Cole: Replying to “https://www.steamcir…”
Sure!
01:05:51 James Newton: And the result is this level of Robotic agility. They collaborated with the Genesis sim group.
01:08:58 James Newton: Our group is doing a startup to provide this level of control to standard robotics arms and looking for investment if you know anyone or want to invest yourself.
01:09:12 Robert: When I went to the Washington Engineering Fair a while back they had an area for Science based organizations to present themselves. There are many people there just waiting to do something so you kind of have a captive audience. Perfect location and event for Robothon tie-in. https://wssef.org/contacts/
01:09:34 Robert: I am not sure who would look into that
01:09:43 Chas Ihler: Reacted to “When I went to the W…” with ❤️
01:12:32 Robert: It was kind of a cool event even if you don’t have a student presenting because the High School has a theater where they were showing Science based movies and also the section where they had science based groups. I heard that they were going to try to have the Space Station speak to them but the scheduling didn’t line up.
01:14:41 Robert: Raspberry Pi 5 16GB $120.00 https://www.seeedstudio.com/Raspberry-Pi-5-16GB-p-6319.html
01:19:03 Robert: Jetson Orin Nano Super Developer Kit $249 https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/autonomous-machines/embedded-systems/jetson-orin/nano-super-developer-kit/
01:20:31 Robert: Parallax Robotics – https://www.parallax.com/shop/
01:22:40 Robert: Kitsap CREATE is also planning to do a STEM EXPO this year in Bremerton. Another place to do a Robothon?
01:22:55 Robert: Likely on May 31st
01:23:53 Chas Ihler: Replying to “Kitsap CREATE is als…”
I’ll bring it up in the Robothon planning meeting.
01:24:48 Robert: Replying to “Kitsap CREATE is als…”
Here is the location for Kitsap CREATE Marvin Williams Recreation Center – A Place For Gathering
01:26:28 Colin L.: Replying to “Kitsap CREATE is als…”
That’s two blocks away from me.
01:27:05 Robert: Replying to “Kitsap CREATE is als…”
The Washington State Engineering and Science Fair will be at Bremerton HS. I really like doing a Robthon there because like I said you have a captive audience that are just waiting there between things. https://wssef.org/contacts/
01:31:51 Robert: Replying to “Kitsap CREATE is als…”
https://bhs.bremertonschools.org
01:37:26 Robert: Kitsap CREATE will probably have their STEM Expo on May 31st although it is still a way off. https://www.facebook.com/KitsapCREATE/
01:42:54 Robert: http://toorcamp.org/
01:43:52 John: Audacity and Dozer links:
Robothon Contest Rules: https://robothon.org/contest-rules/
JPL Open-source Rover: https://github.com/nasa-jpl/open-source-rover/tree/master
“Sawppy Build” presentation from July 2021 Robothon Exhibition: https://youtu.be/kwLCFXhYZ7c?si=nJ3uOXxi4h6NHNEa&t=204
Audacity’s build: https://github.com/jrjennings/Audacity
Dozer’s build: https://github.com/jrjennings/SumoBot
01:45:19 Robert: https://www.geekwire.com/
01:48:06 Robert: https://www.youtube.com/@srsclips-n-more
01:51:20 James Newton: Remote data links are really difficult to do, but obviously would help so much with debugging. I did some work on ultra cheap, simple (ish), tele-op via BOSH on a Google App Engine (free time each month) if you have an interest.
https://github.com/HaddingtonDynamics/Dexter/issues/31#issuecomment-633180367
01:53:45 Robert: https://firstwa.org/
01:54:28 Robert: https://www.vexrobotics.com/competition
01:55:07 Robert: The MATE ROV Competition Washington – Pacific Northwest Regional is designated for SCOUT, NAVIGATOR, and RANGER class competition, hosted at Federal Way, and serves as the regional hub for team development in central Washington and northwest U.S. Registration opens soon! Pacific Northwest
01:55:33 Robert: https://materovcompetition.org/register-regionals/pnw-regional
01:57:42 Robert: Question: How do you think the Jetson Orin Nano Super Developer Kit will affect robotic hobbyists?
01:58:32 Robert: Jetson Orin Nano Super Developer Kit | NVIDIA
02:02:13 Chas Ihler: Note to Steve: you can put me down for a talk on ‘NodeRED for Robotics’ some month… .
02:07:13 Robert: Raspberry Pi 5 16GB -Raspberry Pi Fifth Flagship Development Computer is assembled with a powerful 2.4GHz 64-bit quad-core Arm processor and an 800MHz VideoCore VII GPU for impressive graphics. It offers advanced camera support, versatile connectivity, and enhanced peripherals, perfect for multimedia, gaming, and industrial tasks. $120 https://www.raspberrypi.com/products/raspberry-pi-5/
02:08:42 Robert: https://www.huskyrobotics.me/
02:12:45 Robert: https://pdxhackerspace.org/index.html
02:13:26 Robert: https://kcls.org/federalwaymakerspace/
02:14:12 Robert: https://bainbridgebarn.org/studios/techlab/
02:14:54 Robert: https://www.discoverburien.org/makerspace
02:20:28 Robert: Olympia Tournament & Joust February 8, 2025 https://www.robotcombatevents.com/events/1082