Thank you to all that came to our Intro Meeting for IEEE.  I hope you got a quick flavor of what IEEE will be this year.  Just to recap, IEEE’s goals are to foster professional development by building cool stuff.   We feel that the quickest way to learn is to get your hands dirty and tackle crazy projects.  For this you don’t need experience, just boat loads of enthusiasm.

This year, our projects are focusing on robotics. We have two major international college competitions that we will be participating in, IGVC and Vex, along with some internal workshops/competitions.

IGVC is the intelligent ground vehicle competition. We are designing, manufacturing, and programming a robot to survive the great outdoors.  It will navigate obstacle courses, travel to landmarks, and wow judges with the awesome engineering know how used to  design it. Our mechanical design has already materialized as a flexible system based around 8020 extrusion and water-jet machined aluminum. Our software system will feature a cluster of laptops running the latest in research robotics software, ROS, and use computer vision to perceive the world. This is to be our most challenging project yet, but we are making great progress. We are set to have a driving chassis and testing platform before Thanksgiving.

VEX, is the perfect answer to the inexperienced builder wanting test their chops. The VEX college competition features well defined challenges along with a set kit of components that allow you to focus on your design instead of where you are purchasing parts.  This frees you to learn the fundamentals of design and robotics. This year's competition pits you against an opposing team and the clock to gather as many inner tubes as possible. In the past, we have awards for excellence in innovation and design. We are looking for folks to take this competition and make it their own.  We want folks to lead the team and design our latest entries.

To get folks used to building from scratch, soldering, and programming, we are also offering a Line Following Robot Workshopon October 3^nd. This workshop will feature our own custom designed line following kit. It has been built from the ground up to be easy to build and program. It fCheck out our kit page for more information. Furthermore, later this year we will be holding a line following competition with cash prizes. Come get a head start on your line follower!

Sign up and buy your kit here

Finally, the last activity that I want to announce is IEEE going to the NYC Maker Faire on September 25^th. The Maker Faire is an event created by Make Magazine to "celebrate arts, crafts, engineering, science projects and the Do-It-Yourself (DIY) mindset."  It features some unbelievable creations and it is a great place to learn what is possible with a little ingenuity.  We will be leaving at 9 am on Saturday. If you are interested in coming, buy your ticket, and sign up to carpool with us to NYC.

Our next meeting will be September 14th in EE203.  See you there,

-Adam Stambler

For those interested in getting involved with IEEE or robotics, We will be hosting our first meeting for the Fall 2010 semester this upcoming week:

Directions to the Mezzanine

If you are not familiar with Busch Campus, the Engineering Building (EN) is the two-floor sprawling concrete structure that borders the Engineering Quad.

If you enter through the front door of the building (which has a long awning leading up to it and faces towards a field with some yet to be installed pipes sitting on it), proceed directly to the back (taking either the left or right path around) and enter the D wing through the covered walkway. Once in the D wing, turn Left toward the EIT lab (a sign should be visible if you look left). As you continue down this hallway make two rights (to stay on it) so that eventually you are on a downward sloping segment of floor. When the slope stops and you find yourself next to a old scanning electron microscope, enter the door to your left labeled EN-D123. Head up the steps immediately in front of you. You're there!

If you are coming from the Busch student center, head out the back exit near the Food vendors. Walk across the parking lot to the semi-enclosed paved area attached to an old looking building (this is part of the D wing of the engineering building). Enter through the doors up some steps and next to the empty gas cylinder storage cage. Once you inside the Engineering Building, turn left and proceed down the sloping floor. When the floor stops sloping and you find yourself next to an old scanning electron microscope, enter the door on the left labeled EN-D123. Go up the flight of metal steps that leads to the top of the center labs: you're now in the Mezzanine!

Map of the Engineering Building

IEEE will be attending the Rutgers University Fall 2010 Involvement Fair today:  Monday, August 30, 201-2:00pm - 6:00pm in the Voorhees Mall - College Ave Campus

Hello Folks,

It  folds socks, it delivers mail, it even plays music.  Its the research bot that does everything!