[Yaaarc] New Robotics Club

[Neal Probert]

Roboteers,

I'd like to call the first meeting for the formation of a new robotics club 
to center in the Farmington Hills / Oakland County area.

It is October 21st at my apartment at 1pm on Saturday, Oct. 21st.  Drinks 
and munchies provided, or bring your own favorite robot food.

Neal Probert
35365 Drakeshire, Apt #203
Farmington Hills, MI 48335
248-522-6836 (or 734-418-2942 Vonage virtual number)

I have high speed Internet and WiFi, a cat, Cable TV and a pair of 
Battlebots DVDs.  I also have a large 5' sumobot arena, 2 RCX Mindstorms and 
lots of Legos.

Agenda
------
Officers
Club Name
Meeting Time
Meeting Location
Recruiting
First Project

Officers
--------
Initially, that would be me as Founder/President till I'm dead or you find 
somebody better.  Volunteers for VP, Treasurer, Secretary, Web Master will 
be needed.

Club Name
---------
My first thought is the Michigan Amateur Robotics Society (MARS) and I 
already have the domain name marsrobotics.org registered for the website and 
mailing list.  I'm open to other naming ideas as well.  I wanted to avoid 
Farmington Hills or Oakland County as that might stomp on other name spaces, 
but still give us a name that will have a larger regional draw.

Meeting Time
------------
At this point, I'd like to try for a Saturday as it affords us more time to 
do things.  I'm also open to other Wednesdays of the month, aside from the 
usual YAAARC nights.

Meeting Location
----------------
I'm considering renting rooms at the Farmington Hills Costic Activity Center 
for big meetings, holding events and competitions.  It's $30/hr for a 15x40' 
room or $40/hr for 45x40' room.

However, if we can find an area company or facility willing to host or 
sponsor us for free or really cheap, that would be good too.

Mission
-------
Fun, Competition, Fun, Education, Fun, Robotics, Fun.  This means getting 
involved in or attending area competitions.  I'd like to encourage members 
to get involved in FIRST supporting local high school teams.  Getting 
involved in other things like Robofest (http://www.robofest.net/).  Having 
our own classes.  Traveling as a group to most distance competitions or 
shows, event to the Dayton Hamfest to hunt for parts.

In addition, I would like to promote the use of open source hardware and 
software for use in robotics.  There are quite a few software tools out 
there now for robotics on Linux, Mac OS X and Windows.  By promoting the use 
of freely available open source, we can more easily share the fruits of our 
endeavors with other robotics hobbyists.

Recruiting
----------
The key to success will be recruiting new members, companies and sponsors. 
We'll do this by networking with other robotics clubs, computer groups and 
involvement in competitions and events.  Please forward this to other folks 
you think will be interested.

First Project
-------------
Robotics panel and competition at Penguicon 5.0 (http://www.penguicon.org/). 
  Matt Arnold has approached me with repeating as Robotics Programming head, 
and this time I want to do an awesome job of it.  I'd like to have a real 
competition on our hands, too.

As most of you well know, Corsa Instruments (Erik Kauppi) has been the 
gracious host of YAAARC meetings for many years now.  One of the markets 
that Corsa sells into is the tractor pull and Matt suggested that we do a 
tractor pull robotics competition.

We'll let YAAARC work up the rules, but we'll kick their butts too!

Thanks!


-- 
          *** ProbeStar Technical Systems, LLC.  ***
       Software Engineering and Application Development

==// Neal W. Probert (President)       / Email: nprobert at probestar.com //
=// Web: www.probestar.com            / Phone: 734-834-7805           //=
// Fax:                              / Cell: 734-834-7805            //==

"Technology is a gift of God. After the gift of life it is perhaps the 
greatest of God's gifts. It is the mother of civilizations, of arts and of 
sciences"
--- Freeman Dyson Infinite in all directions