Who can go?

Arizona FIRST participants,
This is Charlie Knapp, the Unmanned Systems Business Development Manager for National Instruments. On September 10 at the ASU, Tempe Campus, I will be presenting a free workshop for FIRST teachers, students and mentors to provide training on the LabVIEW Application Development Environment.
LabVIEW will be a programming option for all FIRST competitions starting in 2009. Since the new FRC robotics controllers are not readily available in quantity at this time, emphasis will be on LabVIEW fundamentals. During about the last third of the training session, a Mindstorms NXT robot will be used as an example of a mechanical system programmed with LabVIEW.
Attendees who have access to a Lego Mindstorms NXT kit will be asked to pre-build and bring a specific NXT robot. Those who are able to bring robots will be further asked, in the spirit of Gracious Professionalism, to share with attendees who are unable to do so.
What: Basic LabVIEW Skills Training for FIRST Mentors, Students and
Teachers
When: Wednesday; September 10, 2008; 5:45 PM - 9:15 PM
Where: ASU, Tempe;
Room location, parking information and campus map will be posted at this link soon:
http://www.oclabview.com/Public/Knapp/FIRST_ASU_LabVIEW_Training.html
Limit: 60 attendees
Software: Attendees will need to pre-install software (see below)
Forms: Attendees will be required to fill out a questionnaire survey
to
attend the free workshop
You'll need to RSVP to this email in order to register. In your RSVP, please indicate whether you will be able to build and bring the robot. Due to the size of the room, attendance will be limited to 60.
You will need to bring the following with you for the training:
1) Your own laptop
2) PC microphone (here is an example of a low-cost one online)
3) LabVIEW Software and the LabVIEW NXT Toolkit installed on your PC (see
below)
4) The NXT "Ballhunter" Robot IF you have access to a Mindstorms NXT kit (see below)
Detailed preparation instructions are included at the bottom of this email.
Please read and follow these instructions carefully and completely if you plan to attend the training.
Best Regards,
Charlie
Charlie Knapp, MSEE
US Unmanned Systems BDM
National Instruments
Office: (949) 858-8323
Cell: (714) 393-5470
Email: charlie.knapp@ni.com
Preparation instructions:
0) Make sure you have Winzip installed on your computer so that you can unzip files.
1) Download and install the LabVIEW 8.6 evaluation version at this link:
https://lumen.ni.com/nicif/us/lveval/content.xhtml
2) Download and install the LabVIEW NXT Toolkit, including the patch, at the following link. Though you will be installing LabVIEW 8.6, you can use the patch for LabVIEW 8.5. If you do not install the patch (refer to the "readme" file), the toolkit will not work.
http://www.oclabview.com/Public/Knapp/NXT_Download.zip
3) Make sure your PC has a sound card. If your PC is capable of playing sound or movie files, then it has a sound card. As mentioned above, bring your own PC microphone, though there will be a few extras in case anyone forgets.
4) If you have direct access to a Mindstorms NXT kit or can borrow one, please pre-build and bring the "Ball Hunter" Robot at the following link.
You must first build the "Castorbot" as the base robot for the "Ball Hunter" Robot. Also, don't forget to bring the red and blue plastic balls and a USB cable to connect the NXT microcontroller to your laptop. In the spirit of Gracious Professionalism, you will be asked to share the use of your robot with attendees who don't have access to a Mindstorms NXT kit.
http://www.nxtprograms.com/ball_hunter/index.html
The Castorbot instructions at the link above assume that you don't have a rechargeable battery pack. Thanks to my colleague, Jeff Steele, here are alternate Castorbot instructions to accommodate a rechargeable battery pack.
http://www.oclabview.com/Public/Knapp/castorbot_rechargeable.zip

Should we sell stuff?

Possible fundraising idea. What do you think? Click here.

Our Constitution

Lowe's Grant

Anyone want to work on this? If so, click on the title above to link to more info.

Meeting Change

Oops, Tuesday isn't going to work for me this week, although next week it will be fine.  Let's try Wednesday this week and see how it goes.  If anyone has a conflict just reply to this post.  See you Wednesday :)

Interesting Email....

Greetings,

I work for Boeing and as one of the focals for FIRST, I'm trying to
ensure that existing newer teams know about the grant that Boeing is
offering for those who have a Boeing mentor in place.

We held an info fair yesterday and today in our cafeteria trying to get
the word out to our employees, but it also might be helpful if teams
also look in their school for interested parents who are Boeing
employees. It might be a good way to find help for the team and also
allow you to qualify for applying for the grant. The Boeing employee
has to fill out the application and the deadline is Sept. 15.

Please let me know if you have any questions. Thanks

Welcome Back Panthers!

Hope you all had a great break! As you may have heard we did not get the SFAZ grant this year. We should probably meet and decide how to proceed. We will post soon to let you know the date of the first meeting. See you all soon :)