Over the weekend of Saturday 2nd April and Sunday 3rd April we had another successful Minos conference and the first since 2019 that we were able to hold in person with a full programme of competitions on the Sunday. You can see the results here Minos 2022 Competition Results
Thank you to all the presenters for sharing their experiences, taking the time to prepare presentations and making them available on the UKMARS page. The fantastic support of these members is what makes Minos.
There was a full programme of presentations from members on the Saturday starting with a presentation on using i2c to add flexibility and increase the input / output capacity of the UKMARSBOT. Stephen demonstrates using i2c to connect sensors to the UKMARSBOT and shows how further capabilities can be off-loaded from the Arduino Nano. You can download the slides from Stephen’s presentation here An-Introduction-to-the-ISC.pdf
A neat trick of connecting an Android phone to the UKMARSBOT using appinventor was presented by David who went on to demonstrate controlling a UKMARSBOT with a phone. The slides of this presentation can be downloaded here control-from-phone.pdf
Although he couldn’t make it on the day, Chris showed us in a pre-recorded presentation how to use an alternative platform, the Pololu 3pi+, to compete in line following events. The slideshow is available here 3Pi+ .
Immediately after lunch Ian showed us the lessons he had learnt positioning sensors on a new PCB for running a robot in the maze and his slides can be down loaded here positioningMazeSensors.pdf . This was followed by a demonstration from Derek on the use of Fusion 360 for 3D modelling and a presentation from Rob showing the use of Open SCAD. Rob’s presentation can be downloaded here openscad_ukmars2022_v2.pdf .
David and Stephen brought us up to date with progress on the new standardised UKMARS timing gantries that are suitable for drag racing and full size line following competitions and you can download their slides here timer-pres.pdf . David also brought us up to date with his experience of the new half size line follower sensor board for the UKMARSBOT, his slides can be downloaded here Half-size-line-follower-board.pdf . Stephen described a neat way to create tyres for robots using liquid latex and constant rotation while setting.
Following a well earned coffe break Rob lead a discussion on possible future developments of UKMARSBOT platforms and we will be picking these thoughts up in our monthly virtual robots club.
Tony gave us a round up of past and present developments in designing a teaching robot and his presentation is available here Teaching-Robots.pdf. The day concluded with members showing the various UKMARSBOTs that they had built and noting that no two UKMARSBOTs were the same.
