Unlike Sparkfun, who actually manage to find fake Atmel ICs, we just get strange batches. The Atmel ATMega328 is the power behind the Arduino/Freeduino/*duino, and we have to set up a programming system to burn the venerable Arduino Bootloader into these chips. We normally use an AVR STK500 in HVSP (high voltage serial programming) mode, […]
Back from PDXBot04
Dave Hrynkiw
June 8, 2004
Grant and I are back from Portland. Nice damp city, that one...reminds me of where I grew up in B.C.
We had a great time under the hospices of Monty Goodson and the rest of the PDXBot crew. We had a good time seeing cool new custom robots by Josh Triska (1st place Advanced Mini-Sumo with "Lo-Bot") and Daryl Sandberg ("Slik", who was out for StrongBad blood this year!). 2Strong2Bad was a bit outclassed this year by really, really fast robots, although it was still the only 4WD mini-sumo there.
We were a bit ambitious with the sheer number of robots we entered:
- 4 Mini-Sumo (2Strong2Bad, StrongBad, Sumovoracious, Ender's Wraith)
- 1 Micro-Sumo (Microvore)
- 2 Nano-Sumo (Princess Becky and BittyBad)
- 2 Walkers (Servocore and ScoutWalker2)
- 2 Line Followers (Herbie and Atmel Sumovore)
- A Family (8?) of Herbies for the Robot Talent Show
How'd we do?
- 1st and 2nd in Nano
- 2nd in Mini-Sumo (Grant's own "Ender's Wraith" - Yaaaay Grant!)
- 3rd in Robot Talent Show
- An unnofficial 2nd in Beginner Line Follower (we just demo'd a Line Follower Herbie)
- 3rd in Micro-Sumo (Grrr...We'll get you Mouse-Trap!)
- 3rd in the Walker Race
Not only that, but Sumovores placed 1st (Kris Miles) and 3rd (Leif Bowlin) in Amateur Mini-Sumo!
In other news, the Calgary Flames fought the honourable fight, but Cinderella was finally handed back her broom by Tampa Bay. Nice work guys! Not many teams can go from last place to almost first place in one season!
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Herbie Reviewed
Here's a link from Gareth Branwyn at Streettech for his review of our new Herbie the Mousebot Kit!
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