Houston Robotics Group

The group is growing, and there's still PLENTY of room for more! Let us know you're coming by RSVPing on meetup: https://lnkd.in/gfJAgxqB You'll learn about... > Robotics > CAD Design > Embedded Programming > Arduino > Python > C++ > 3D Printing > Laser Cutting > Electrical Wiring > & More! You'll meet... > Industry professionals > High school students > College students > ROS & ROS2 experts > PCB Design experts > Software Developers > Mechanical Engineers > People looking to hire > People looking to get hired > & more If you're into robotics, robotics adjacent topics, or topics adjacent to robotics adjacent.... this is the place to be on Saturdays!

Come be a part of the excitement. Meet new people, make new projects, get expert advice, have fun! RSVP and show up to today's meeting! (you can RSVP two minutes before showing up!) https://lnkd.in/gpDERttY

My robot arm is coming along nicely! The bottom got an upgrade and got a wooden board screwed on so that when arm moves it won’t fall over. It’s all assembled up and we hooked all the servos up on to the Arduino board just fine. Then we uploaded some basic C++ code we got from the arduino documentation on to the board and got the gripper to move. It was hooked on to the giant (exaggerating) power supply and we were figuring out why the power usage was so high. It turns out that the servo on the gripper was making it clamp too hard. We must find the minimum and maximum positions of each servo since the default ones use too much power. I put the signal wires on to sockets that didn’t have a squiggly line causing some servos to not move. Sockets 9 and 10 also timers on them naturally that must be disabled. I am trying to figure that out. Found the minimum and maximum positions for about 2-3 servos already. I also found out with Mike’s help that one of the servos were bad since we moved the signal to a different socket and did some testing. It was a blast! I would love to see this arm pick up objects. Mike Schoonover Jonah Phillips Khanh Nguyen Giselle Schoonover Hunter Schoonover Camille MacLaren

It's been about 2 weeks since I've moved to Houston from Laredo ！！(゜ロ゜ノ)ノ Besides staying on top of my assignments (my academic comeback 😼), I've made it a priority for me to look out for clubs and workshops that interest me. At the Code Coogs Fall Workshop, where I got lucky with a round of Bingo and scored a starter Arduino Kit (Thank you Code Coogs!) Khanh Nguyen invited me to the Houston Robotics Group 's weekly meetings on Saturday at the Ion Houston (*⌒３⌒*) I am honestly super grateful for this invitation, because last Saturday. was. AWESOME!!! Jonah Phillips showed me the line following bot he was working on, and all of his previous projects, Honestly, then and there, the environment inspired me to start drafting a project of my own immediately. I want to start small with a prototype of an RC car that can collect, crush, and sort plastic bottles and soda cans🧋 and I am planning to start with the crushing mechanism since making trash more compact for sorting would be not only a useful place to start, but also an easier place to branch out from. I decided to take inspiration from a small project I made back at my high school robotics team 😶🌫️ Back then, we wanted to design a double claw that opened flat like most other team designs... however, unlike most other team robots, our robot was super narrow! I ended up sawing, shaving, grinding off a copius amount of PLA, and inhaling a ton of it in the process because I was far too stubborn to print the design again (took way too long for my impatient self 💀). It did work well at its job with the mini servos, mind you, it just didnt fit. Finally, I moved on and decided to do what a smart and reasonable person wouldve started with: clamping *down* on the scoring components. I butchered my old claw to mount the miniservos to the new frame, and made the linear sleeve out of an old shoebox I wasn't using anymore. After that, I upgraded to REV servos because of the torque and using the better quality horns made for them was better than trying to superglue my own 😭. Finally, I designed and printed the basic linear sleeves. Flashback over (*.*) Anyway, this time around though, I wanted to challenge myself to not use anything like the REV control hub or an Arduino and do some actual electrical engineering 😼 Here is where my efforts were misguided though... I was planning to use an SR Latch "sort of thing", to control the servo position... I remembered midway through building my circuit that SERVOS ARE CONTROLLED WITH PWM 🤦♀️🙂↔️ But whatever, because this would be my first ever digital logic circuit (*⌒３⌒*). So I kept going. None of the circuits worked though, I broke it down to an unsuccessful NOR gate to control an LED that didnt work either. Oh well. Nevertheless, I'M COMING BACK ON SATURDAY 😼 Thanks for reading my lore drop, and thank you Houston Robotics Group for the fun and experience! Hunter Schoonover Giselle Schoonover Tanya Koganti David Aranda Luis Arriaga

Recently I have been going to the Houston Robotics Group on Saturdays. I have been working on a robot starter kit and trying to understand the code that was prebuilt in. The last few weeks I built the robot and learned how to control the motors. This week I learned how the gyro chip received information.

Look out Houston Robotics Group! You've got competition! Odense is on track to become the ROBOT CAPITAL of the WORLD. With world-renowned robotics companies such as Universal Robots and Mobile Industrial Robots, they also host a robot festival! You can read more at https://lnkd.in/g8Vmxrk5 To find out about Denmark's national robotics cluster, check out Odense Robotics. #robotics #futuredesign #design #sustainability Mike Schoonover Jonah Phillips Hunter Schoonover Giselle Schoonover Larry Ciscon, Ph.D. Niell Gorman Dr. Fernando De La Peña Llaca Leanne Bowers Graphic Artists Guild Sanne Grangaard

Last Friday, SPRINT Robotics had its Day 2 event at the University of Houston and I had yet another spectacular time not only learning more about robotics in energy but also networking with a bunch of industry professionals and students as well! 🤖🐾 I made sure to take notes this time during the panels (hence why I was standing alone at one of the tables in the event room as seen in the picture posted by Mike Schoonover). This was an event that I was quite eager to promote as both a Student Director of the NSM Career Center and as the Vice President of Code Coogs. I was quite pleased to encounter a handful of people who told me that they were able to find out about the opportunity through my postings or recognized me on LinkedIn and had great interest in joining the Houston Robotics Group! (We honestly should’ve asked to have our own table at the event and brought Spud with us for our indoctrination efforts but I digress). I was also happy to see Giselle, Gurjinder, Adam (who was also able to volunteer at the event), and Jonah at the venue! Some key takeaways from this event that I’ve collected regarding the advice the panelists would give to their past selves are: 1. “Be faster to failure and take the chance for yourself.” - Elizabeth Folmar (ExxonMobil) 2. “Don’t be afraid to ask questions. Put yourself out there.” - Albethsi Perales (Chevron) 3. “Take your ego out. Don’t try to be good at everything and surround yourself with people who know stuff you don’t know. Set good habits for yourself and increment your achievements.” - Connor Crawford (Pike Robotics) 4. “Make sure you make friends with your classmates. Maintain your network and keep track of your peers.” - Diana Grauer, PhD (NOV) 5. “Join a book club! Explore more reading recommendations.” - Elbert van der Bijl (Yokogawa) There’s honestly so much more from this event that I can write past LinkedIn’s 3,000 character limit but in summation to the needs of robotics in energy: - There is a current demand for engineering, data science & analytics, AI/ML, IT, software, field services, manufacturing, maintenance, and corporate function specialists - There is a prevalence of inspection demands in the energy industry with a growing initiative for it to be accomplished through robotics - The impact of future technologies will involve a lot of skill shifts, increased collaboration, an encouragement for increased learning, new job roles, remote operations, more cross-disciplinary skill requirements, and new innovations - There will constantly be changing needs in the workforce and the best we can do is adapt to these changing needs Thanks again to Xavier and Javier for hosting and conducting this event and thank you to the other companies along with everyone else that showed up to this event! Haption, SUT - US Society for Underwater Technology in the U.S., Tempest Droneworx™, ROSEN, Nexxis, SLB, UH Energy, Houston Community College, University of Houston-Clear Lake

I had the honor of being invited to the SPRINT Robotics Day 1 event last Thursday along with Giselle and Mike Schoonover! 🤖⚡ I learned a lot about current and long-term initiatives of robotics in energy at the seminar and even got the chance to go on a tour out to Chevron’s robotics lab at The Cannon Community! Before the event, I didn’t even know that Chevron and bp had a robotics sector, so I was stoked to hear that more and more companies like them are adopting robotics into their workforce! Oftentimes, there’s a misinterpretation that the adoption of robots in the workforce will eliminate the need for people, however, that is not the case in essence of these efforts. The main goal of having robots in the energy industry is to distance humans from danger or any high-risk environments. Along with these initiatives, there is a growing demand for technicians and people who are able to work with and maintain these robots. I genuinely look forward to a future where there’s a prevalence of robots co-working with humans in the workspace! Given how fairly new the adoption of these initiatives are, the outlook for more innovation within this field looks quite promising with the things we are seeing now; from robot dogs that are able to walk around autonomously to drones that can accurately capture and process three-dimensional topographic maps! Thank you to Mauricio (SPRINT Robotics), Ramanan (UH Energy), Steve (bp), Domenico (TEAM, Inc.), Richard Climenhage (ANYbotics), Reynol (ROSEN), and Richard Hurley (Chevron) for speaking at this seminar and bringing these insights to us attendees! I would also like to take the time to extend my thanks to Silvia, Blaine, and Steve, all from bp, for welcoming me to your table after the event and speaking with me! I initially had plans to leave right after the seminar but while I was ready to head out, I saw that the drive back with traffic would take me up to an hour to get home, so I just decided to head back inside to wait it out instead. I greatly appreciate all of you for talking to me, letting me know more about your background, and offering many words of encouragement. Lately, I’ve had moments where I’ve been doubtful that all of my efforts to break into the field have been amounting to anything at all. However, Steve provided this analogy that I really admired, and it’s a lot of the time you think that your journey is an upward ladder. Still, more often than not, it’s a side-stepping ladder where you go up one rung and have to take a few (or even several) paces horizontally before you move up the next. Biggest thanks to Xavier and Javier for making this event happen! I cannot thank Xavier enough for actually reaching out to us in person at Cup of Joey and Javier for providing me with more info on both the Day 1 and 2 events! I look forward to keeping up to date on news from SPRINT Robotics and if there’s ever an event like this one happening in the area, you can guarantee to see me there!

I love looking at these photos and seeing the exact moment when they realize... 👀📸🏢 Houston Robotics Group 🤖🥔💖 Join us to create unforgettable memories together! https://lnkd.in/ghhXknKR

I love looking at these photos and seeing the exact moment when they realize... 👀📸🏢 Houston Robotics Group 🤖🥔💖 Join us to create unforgettable memories together! https://lnkd.in/ghhXknKR