Hello everyone! (Hi Doctor Nick!… nevermind.)

I had better post an update before 2008, not too long left in this year man!

First off, I probably won’t be updating often until next year. I don’t have much time at the moment unfortunately and have heaps on until Jan. Anyone with an account will be able to update however so feel free to jump on and wreck up the place post some great updates about your projects!

Even though I won’t be updating often I am still working on my own projectst slowly as well as following robotics everywhere. Ausrobotics is still fully operational and I want to see it grow massively in ‘09. This year was heaps of fun, the only thing we need is a more focused site and better community involvement. As always I welcome any advice, support, anything from all you guys!

Thanks to everyone that contributed over the year (and last year), next year will be even better. We may even meet up for beers! *gasp*

Hello everyone. Just a quick update with what is going on with ausrobotics this week and next.

What is going on?

First off, I know the new site is confusing some of you. This seems to be mostly because of the limited functionality available in the current forum and possibly due to the layout of the site.

The main reason I chose WP-Forum as the forum for AR was its seamless integration with the rest of the site. I didn’t want people to have to log-in twice to access the forum and then their development blogs, plus its a bit of a pain to admin two entirely separate systems. Even so, I am not completely happy with it. It keeps throwing up DB errors when I turn on certain features so I have had to disable them (you know, the useful ones like Last Posted Topics etc.).

I am thinking that migrating (again – argh) to PHPBB3 might be a winner. It’s a well known forum and those who love forums will feel right at home. The only issue is that I need a robust way of keeping the two databases in sync. I’m looking around for a solution as we speak and will keep you posted. Till then please keep posting!

Any Sydney-side roboteers out there?

Also, Higgsman is looking for fellow robot builders in Sydney if anyone wants to contact him. His MSN details are in this post.

Oh yeah, and robot legs…

Honda have used some of the technology from Asimo to develop a pair of extremely uncomfortable looking exoskeletal assistance legs. For some reason I don’t like the groin grabbing aspect of them although it *would* be great to have an instant chair wherever you went…

[via Artificial Intelligence and Robotics]

1) Sign-up for an account if you have not already done so! - Once you have signed up you can immediately start blogging about your projects on the main site and in the forum.

2) Sign-in and check out the new authoring control panel - It’s now easier to view and manage your posts and comments from one place.

3) Subscribe to the Ausrobotics feed using your favorite RSS reader @ http://ausrobotics.com/feed/. - That way you can stay in touch with what is going on without even visiting the site!

4) Start talking in the Forums – Got a question about robotics? Start asking and get answers! One thing to note is that you can now easily create forum topics from posts to get the conversation going (See the bottom of the Write Post screen).

5) Get excited because you have a lot of great new features on the way! - Event listings, Project management, member geolocation, email comment subscriptions and more. Go Wordpress!

I am more than happy to announce that Ausrobotics.com v2 is now live.

If you are a member please sign in and have a look around. If you are not a member yet then what are you waiting for?!

Join us today and you will receive a free gift worth more than money can buy! Ok, it’s just that feeling you get when you sign up for something awesome hehe

If anyone has an issue with the new site please let me know asap in the comments for this post. I’ll be working on it more during the week to iron out the rough edges.

I’ll also post some more info on how to use it, new features, etc. as soon as I can. I have just run out of time today.

Whooo!