Big Week For Anniversary's!

This is a big week for anniversarys is space science and Robot related news. This past week marks the 40th anniversary of the Appolo 8 mission. This mission is significant because it was the first manned orbit of the moon and for the famous photograph by astronaut William Anders of the "Earthrise" above the moon. - Info here: http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/imagegallery/image_feature_102.html
On Jan. 3rd, 2004 the Mars rover Spirit landed on Mars and started its amazing life of exploration. The rover Opportunity touched down 21 days later. Deatails here: - http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/mer/news/mer-20081229.html
And finally last but certainly not least Jan. 2nd is the celebrated birthday of Isaac Asimov. Dr. Asimov never knew his exact birthdate because of differences in the Gregorian and Hebrew calendars and because of a lack of exact records, but it was sometime between October 4, 1919 and January 2, 1920. He was one of the Grand Masters of science fiction writing and a personal inspiration to me. While Asimov did not invent the Robot stories he took them to a next level from pulp fiction magazines with his development of the "Three Laws Of Robotics" and his Robot novel series and short stories, ultimately weaving the destiny of mankind, more than 20000 years in the future from the subtle manipulations of two telepathic Robots, R. Daneel Olivaw and R. Giskard Reventlov. After reading these stories the idea of telepathic Robots isn't only plausible, but kind fo scary! I hope everyone who read blog this will consider for a moment how Asimov and authors like him have truly influenced our present day life and our future as several generations of scientists, inspired by their creative genius have worked to make science fiction reality. Happy Birthday Dr. Asimov!

NASA TV to air FIRST kickoff event

For those of us who receive NASA TV, tomorrow Jan. 3rd at 10:00AM, they'll be broadcasting coverage of the 2009 season FIRST kickoff event from New Hampshire. Details here: http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/MM_NTV_Breaking.html

For information about FIRST and the FLL go here:
http://www.usfirst.org/default.aspx

Qiuck Update

Sorry for several post today, but these past few weeks were quite busy. When we last left our Robot club we had all made good progress towards finishing our models and were about to begin working on the code that would enable our Robots to complete their objective. Hopefully we'll be adding some pictures this week - Stay tuned!

Happy Holidays & 2009

Just a note to wish everyone a Happy 20091 I hope everyone's holiday week was restful and warm. I'm looking forward to a big year robotically in 2009!