Checksum Arcanius

Over the last two days, I have spent 14 hours at the Seattle Robotics Society‘s Robothon. The primary activity was letting people know about the Titan Robotics Club and FIRST, but we also competed in the Mini Sumo competition. Things went quite well in that arena, and we captured second place in the beginner’s division. Quite a feat for our first time robot builder, Justin.

This evening, I created a fun video from the competition footage. Windows Movie Maker is becoming pretty durn good, although its still not up to iMovie’s mark. Linkin Park, of course, found its was into this video as well. If you want different music, you join the TRC’s video team and do it yourself! (This offer is for real, by the way).

I met Amy at IS today at 4:30 to load the two robots headed for the Seattle Center. We quickly got the robots loaded, tripping over the boxes and debris spread thorughout the room (that was supposed to be cleaned out several weeks ago). Somehow, we got working on cleaning the place up, and didn’t leave until just after 7:00. The room looks pretty good now. I wouldn’t quite say spetacular yet – but comparitively, it is pretty incredible. I wonder what the clubmembers will say when they see it. A hack session at the school is growing to be closer and closer to reality.

Today, the TRC had an excellent FIRST Lego League interest meeting, due to a large application of luck and some good ol’ hard work. A special shout out to Gabby for her last-minute arrangement of a staff contact, without which we would have been genuinely screwed.

For the Titan Robotics Club, I mostly stood by while Bob set up Mailman. He managed to get everything working extrodinarily well, even making all of my mail work better (especially with AOL) , by using Comcast’s mail server as a smarthost.

Now, Mailman isn’t a perfect solution to the TRC’s needs. For example, each mailing list a user subcribes to creates what is essentially another user account. This list-centric thinking instead of user-centric thinking means that the a single user could have to remember a seperate passwords for each list, unless they explicitly set them up the same. This is a true issue, and the designers of Mailman know it as well (its on their list of things to fix in upcoming versions).

However, the more I become familiar with Mailman, the more I am impressed by its consistent design philosophy and robust nature. So far, it has caught every single bounced email (no eternal loops like the MeetingCenter would send out), its archives are excellent resources, and its admin pages are feature-rich and while not compact, overall quite well laid out.

Three cheers for Mailman. I might learn Python just to help out with the project.

I had a nice long talk with Liz Vandenberge today, and learned some important things about the changes we are being told about, and the reasons behind them. First and foremost, I was happy to hear that the ASB is on our side. They want the clubs to succeed, and as one of the most widely recognized clubs inside and outside of IS, they definitely want us to succeed.

In order for that to happen, however, since we are an ASB club, we must function within the ASB guidelines, which have not been consistently enforced before. Sinc we often didn’t know about, or bother to find out about, these regulations, we often felt like they were punitive, constricting and arbitrary. And while I am no friend of bureacracy, remember that the reason it exists is because someone has screwed over the system before, and they want to prevent it from happening again, so they make rule. True, often they are arbitrary, but once we know about them ahead of time, we can plan with them in mind, and in reality, there is very little we are prohibited from doing once we get the proper approval.

I will now transcribe the list of what we went over:

1. If we want something in the bulletin, we need to get it approved by the advisor [Brad]. Marty’s preferred method is email, and this should make it really easy for us too. Once the executive board decides on a course of action that requires an announcement in the bulletin, an officer emails the announcement to Brad, who looks it over and (presumably) approves it by sending it on to Marty. We can also submit things on written clearly and legibly on paper, and signed by Brad, but I don’t see why we would bother; email seems a lot easier.
2. As most of you are probably aware now, if we want to schedule the building for use, we must do so at least a week in advance. According to Marty, this is as a courtesy to the custodians who need to scheudule their work around the activities going on in the building to maximize their limited time. The custodians have always been extremely generous with the TRC and we should definitely try to make their lives easier when possible. Besides, planning things at least a week in advance is always a good practice.
3. Most of the fundraising rules that we need to abide by are due to various federal, state, and local laws governing non-profit organizations and public money (since we are part of a public institution). In order to comply with these laws and pass an audit, if that were to ever happen, we need to work within the bounds of these rules. They may feel restricting at first, but I trust they are much nicer to deal with than an auditor who is finding discrepencies.
4. Liz gave me a packet, called “ASB Fundraising.” I suggest we go over it at the next leadership meeting. Speaking of leadership meetings, last Sunday’s seems to have worked for most people, and when I talked to Genevieve Sunday night, she indicated that in the future, Sunday afternoon/evenings would work for her too. I move to make Sunday leadership meetings a regular activity. What times are best for everyone?
5. Liz also gave me the form that we need to fill out to get a fundraising plan approved by the ASB. The timeline for this is as follows: We submit the completed form (including signatures) to Liz before Tuesday at lunch, and it will get onto the General ASB’s agenda for Wednesday, and presuming that it is approved, we can begin fundraising that Wednesday afternoon. Thats a pretty good turnaround – we never have to wait more than a week to get a fundraiser approved.
6. Raffles are a form of gambling – as such, the police must be notified, and tickets can only be sold to adults (18+). Of course, the ASB must also approve it as a fundraiser, since they are only allowed to have three raffles a year for all the clubs in the IS ASB.
7. I also got an “ASB Activity Coordinator Guide,” which is basically a guide for us on how to make Brad’s life as advisor easier. We should go over this at the next leadership meeting.
8. As far as spending money goes, the big deal is that we show that it was students that decided to spend the money, not teacehers, mentors, or anyone else; but the students in the club. As such, I suggest we hold off on ammending the constitution with the current proposal and wait for a new ammendment which will embrace this new reality. In other words, its ok for only the executive board to vote to spend money – as long as the executive board is composed of students in the club. This is a big improvement over what I thought would turn into a requirement of having the entire club to vote on every expenditure. I also think this is a vast improvement over the way we have been doing things in the past, where most people had no idea we were spending club money on. All expenses must be preapproved, and that is also a good way to run things. Also, its easy, since now pre-approval simply means a vote of easily-accessible club officers, in a meeting where official minutes are taken.
9. Brad, or another staff memeber who willingly accepts responsibility for us, must be in the building whenever we are in the building. This one is pretty straightforward.
10. As a part of the ASB, we can’t spend money on anything that gives students credits or a grade.

So student leaders – write back to the list on wether Sundays are a good day for you, and what times work for a weekly meeting.

Remember, ASB is on our side. We can not fail now :-)

Sometimes when I sleep, I have strange dreams. But when I’m awake, I dream big dreams. Big like Mt. Everest. Like about the great things the TRC will do, and the ways that I’m going to change things when I’m president, and good bionic inventions to have. Then I finish mowing the lawn, and one guy shows up for the hack session, and Bush and Kerry are the only viable choices, and the FDA stifles all medical innovation. So I keep on dreaming.

The TRC has a new logo – tenatively. Thanks to my dad and my brother for suggesting fewer teeth. Thanks to me for insisting that it look like a gear that could work :-D. I like it a lot, and everyone I’ve shown it to so far seems to agree. Would you buy a window decal with this on it for $5 or $10? Let me know what you think about the logo and buying the thing.