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Denver Area Robot Club

While I live in Colorado Springs, the closest group I've found to share my robot hobby with are up in Denver. Well, not quite Denver: we usually meet in a suburb south of Denver. An area called Highlands Ranch. Which is where the Ranch in RanchBots comes from.



It is an interesting group of people. The guy who leads the group, Kerwin, is a really nice guy. He works with electronics, and is very good about sharing his knowledge. He is very good with helping beginners. He helped out a whole high school class the last year, so I give him a lot of credit for that.

There are an interesting collection of other people who usually attend. Some of them are a bit geeky and some you wouldn't know that they were technically minded. I think it is great to see a mother and her (I guess about) 8 year old son come to most of the monthly meetings. He is excited by the simpler robots, and often has a neat robotic-style toy he has built or customized. But the mother always seems to be trying to learn more about the more complex robotics. I can see that she has to really push herself to grasp some of the concepts we throw around. But I think it is fantastic that she keeps coming back. Keep asking questions!

Another guy who often shows up comes down even further than I drive up. He comes down from the more advanced Front Range Robot Group out of Fort Collins. It is always interesting to see what he comes up with. He has put together some fantastic hardware.



Every four months we have schedule a joint meeting between the two groups, just past the northern edge of Denver. It's not too bad a drive for the Denver guys, but it means I have to drive a little more than the Fort Collins guys. Unluckily I missed the last joint meeting, as my son was having his birthday party. It seems like the spring meeting is always a poor showing from the Denver club. Perhaps we should just make that one an automatic skip. :)

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