1/11/05
- We have lost the chuck key to the drill press. It will not be unlocked until this key is replaced. Please check to see if you have misplaced the chuck key with your robot and if so, return it right away.
- Also missing is an unused 3" roll of blue tape (the color of the tick marks) -- if found alert Joia.
- Two more playing fields are available--a large one in 34-501 and a "sandbox" in 38-500. Feel free to rearrange walls, add/move bar codes, add/move balls, etc. Moving robots have priority on the larger fields. Picture-taking (stationary) robots should use the sandbox field.
1/10/05
- Please do not take the safety glasses out of the workshop. You shouldn't be doing anything outside the workshop where you need them, and people were waiting today to get work done because they could not find glasses.
- If you unplug the monitor, keyboard, and/or network cable of a lab computer to use with your laptop or robot, please plug them back in when you are finished.
- New materials have arrived: 1/4" and 1/16" polycarbonate and (more) 0.04" sheet aluminum. The 1/16" poly and new aluminum can be cut on our new huge shear! Watch your fingers! Try to use the back to middle protion of the blade when cutting, not the very front which tends to bend the material.
- We've updated the software again. For your convenience, you should now be able to get future updates without rebooting by running update-maslab on the bot. Also, orcd should now be in your path on the bot. (You may have to reboot in order for them to be added to your path -- they're in /opt/maslab/bin.)
- Problems involving not being able to change the camera resolution should be fixed.
- RGBtoHSV has a weird bug in it. The problem seems to not occur if you don't try to call it on images read from files. We're working on a fix to this.
- As a temporary measure, java.awt.Color has an RGBtoHSB works (B is brightness in HSB, as opposed to V, value).
- We've once again had a rogue DHCP server sabotage our network. It has been fixed now.
1/7/05
- The 1/8" polycarbonate in the workshop can be broken along straight lines. Use a utility knive to score the piece (make several passes). Place the scored side down on the new brake (metal bender). Put on some safety glasses, tighten the clamps, and bend. Makes a loud snapping noise: don't be scared.
- Note that botclient and orcspy are in your path if have added the 6.186 locker.
- New bar codes are on the playing field (slightly different green, black). Also note that we've changed the parity bit: bar codes now contain an odd number of green squares. This means that there will always be at least one green square on a bar code.
- There is now a limited supply of 0.04" sheet metal in the workshop. We will be getting more in on Monday. This thickness is suitable for use with the hand punch and the red shear/brake. Please be gentle with the red shear/brake.
1/6/05
- Added a StudentTips page below. If you have advice, tips, howtos to share, please put it there. Let's save this area for staff announcements.
- Your first Gyro is now 0 sensor points (free).
- Don't try to use compression on botclient for now.
- The botclient AFS issue has been fixed. You can run botclient by running /mit/6.186/2005/botclient again.
1/5/05
- High torque (4.5 RPM) and high speed (324 RPM) motors are available.
- Sheet aluminum is on the way, the existing pieces were too thick to be cut on the shear or easily punched. New sheets will be either 0.04" or 0.05" thick.
- More polycarbonate is on the way.
- Check out the new PlayingField page -- it will be updated often!!
- If your team is having trouble running BotClient on Athena, it's a known bug with AFS. The current workaround is to run the following command:
add gnu; wget -O ~/maslab.jar http://maslab.csail.mit.edu/2005/update/maslab.jar
java -cp ~/maslab.jar maslab.telemetry.botclient.BotClient
- Clarification on outside materials: regardless of how your team obtains the materials, the cost that will be counted against your 100 dollars is the amount of money it would cost another team to create something with the same functionality. For example: if you build your your chassis out of an expensive alloy, it still doesn't count against your cost because MASLab provides teams with structural metal. Same goes for basic gears. However, if you use more complex gears that MASLab doesn't provide, then you would have to consider how much it would cost another team to obtain similar gears -- if used gears are easily available to other teams, then you can cite the used cost.
- Also be aware that we also have access to the 6.001 lab. If you're finding yourself short on computer space for coding, moving in there might be a good idea.
- Barcodes and red balls are available for viewing in the playing field area. Be aware that the exact colorings of the materials may be changing this week.
- Remember to back up your files to AFS (Athena) so that you don't lose your code!
- When constructing your chassis: please be careful with tools -- ask staff for help if you are in doubt. Also, feel free to experiment but please be mindful of not wasting material.
1/4/05
- In case you hadn't considered it, the computer's case is a giant conductor! If you do something like, say, put your OrcPad on top of it, you might short together lots of things that you don't want. So don't do that. --TeamTen, who just redid their entire OrcPad from scratch. Consider putting a couple layers of duct tape on the bottom of the orcpad to serve as an insulator.
- To run BotClient (on an Athena station), run /mit/6.186/2005/botclient. Note that nothing interesting will happen unless you are publishing something on a Channel in your program running on the bot. Look at the maslab.telemetry classes.
- To run OrcSpy (on an Athena station), run /mit/6.186/2005/orcspy IPADDRESS. (If OrcSpy fails to start with "Reconnect failed" errors, change $DAEMON & to $DAEMON --allowremote & in /etc/init.d/orcd-daemon, run /etc/init.d/orcd-daemon restart, and try again. --TeamThree)
- Make sure that you're using Java 1.5.0 (see JavaOnAthena).
1/3/05
- To enable X11-forwarding over SSH, edit /etc/ssh/sshd_config, and apt-get install xbase-clients. --TeamSeven
- If your setscrews are really hard to tighten (wheels fall off), try tightening them without the motor shaft in place using the yellow hex key set. Then loosen the setscrew and try again.
- The battery crimp connectors may be too small for your battery. Ask Yuran or Aaron to clip your battery connectors if you're having trouble.
- We're working on fixing the
orcmanual pdf...