2026

Posted on April 8, 2026April 13, 2026 by Robie_robot

A DPRG Team of Mark Reynolds and Doug Paradis participated in a Line Following Parade held by Dallas College – Eastfield Campus on April 11, 2026. Their entry was based around a theme of “Roborama”. It consisted of two parts: a line following robot with a ultrasonic sensor that allowed the robot to match the speed of a leading robot, and a float that contained automaton simulations of a line following and a 6-can competition, a workbench with a laptop with an OLED display screen, two posed test dummies, 84 addressable LEDs, and a posed Robie that looked like it was driving the robot. See the presentation for details of the entry.

The entry was very well received at the event, which the sponsors hope to make happen yearly. Multiple DPRG members came to the event to support the team.

DPRG Monthly Meeting – LiDAR and ROS2 (oh my!), The Maker’s Pet Robot Kit – 3/28/2026

Posted on March 22, 2026March 29, 2026 by Robie_robot

Video:

AI Generated Meeting Summary: Meeting Summary (PDF)

The DPRG held its March meeting at the Dallas Makerspace this Saturday Mar 28 at 10AM. There will be a buzzer on the door to admit attendees to the Makerspace. All are welcome to attend the meeting.

The meeting will featured a talk by the creator of the Maker’s Pet robot kit, Ilia Olysiannikov. The Maker’s Pet is an inexpensive differential-drive robot with lidar and turn-key ROS2 software. It can map its environment using the ROS2 SLAM package and navigate within the generated map.

Turn-key” and “ROS2” aren’t usually used together (though often promised), but thanks to the innovative use of docker containers and excellent build/operate videos and documentation, this robot is super-easy to get going and make maps and navigate flexibly within them. Several DPRG members have built this robot. In fact, this post’s featured image is a photo of Mark R.’s robot.

Additional details for the Maker’s Pet robot kit can be found at https://makerspet.com/.
Pizza was served at Noon.

RBNV – Robot Builder’s Night Virtural – 08/12/25

Posted on August 8, 2025August 13, 2025 by Robie_robot

Meeting Video:

AI Generated Meeting Summary: Meeting Summary (PDF)
Star Rewards (★ = significant robot progress, ⭐ = robot progress and running on floor):
Stars are awarded by group during the meeting.
Karim Virani – ★
Mike Williamson – ⭐

When

• August 12, starting at 7:30 PM Dallas time.
• Robot Builders Night Virtual (RBNV) meets each Tuesday evening.

RBNV – Robot Builders Night Virtual – June 30, 2020

Posted on July 3, 2020July 3, 2020 by Robie_robot

Chat Record: Chat Record (PDF)

Above is the video and chat record for the Robot Builders Night Virtual (RBNV) meeting held on June 30th, 2020.

FALL Competition – Date Change (corrected)

Posted on September 25, 2019September 25, 2019 by Robie_robot

The date for DPRG’s Fall 2019 Competition has been changed from 11/9/19, to 11/16/19 (3rd Saturday of November). A time slot has been opened up for Donkey Car training, 10 AM to Noon. Contests start at Noon. See Fall Competition for details.

ARM based Subsumption – Monthly Meeting Topic – August 11th, 2018

Posted on August 9, 2018September 4, 2019 by Robie_robot

DPRG’s monthly meeting for August is on Saturday, the 11th, at the Dallas Maker Space. The meeting starts at Noon.

This month, long time DPRG member David Anderson will review recent upgrades made to his infamous “leaf blower” RCAT robot. Dave has completed a port of the robot’s subsumption architecture and LMX, a light-weight cooperative round-robin multi-tasking executive, to an STM Nucleo F411 board. The result is a dramatic improvement in performance. David will also highlight a custom printed circuit board, a joint effort between Ron Grant and David, that facilitates signal and power breakout for clean wiring layout. David will provide details on how to obtain a copy of the board.

As part of the presentation, Dave will also touch on the subsumption architecture used in this and many of his competition winning robots.