But what about local stuff?  Events you can go spend a day and half a tank of gas to visit?

There is a robotics group in Maine.  It is called: Maine Robotics.  It’s a non-profit organization run by Tom Bickford.   To quote their website:

Bringing Science and Technology to Maine Schools and Children
Since 2000 Maine has been using robotics to educate children from the 3rd grade up through high school.  Robotics is a multi-disciplinary topic that touches on engineering, basic science, computers, programming, mathematics, problem solving, and project design and management.

Maine Robotics happens to be located about 20 miles from me.  I’ve helped judge and referee the FLL competitions.  And I’m planning on attending the Southern Maine Track Meet on May 2nd.

Here is a list of their upcoming events sponsored by Maine Robotics:

Maine Robot Track Meet
    Southern Maine Track Meet
    May 2nd, 2009
    Auburn Middle School

    Northern Maine Track Meet
    May 9th, 2009
    Maine Maritime Academy, Castine

Summer Robotics Camps
    From July 6th to August 14th (weeks)
    Bangor, Orono, Portland, Gorham, Readfield, Ellsworth, and check for
    additional weeks.  Ages 9-15.

For more information on the camp, check out the Maine Robotics 2009 Camp website.

Do you know of any local robotics groups?  If so, please leave a link in the comments.  I’ll try to compile a list of them.

UPDATE:  Thanks to the folks over at The NXT Step, here are some more local robotics events.

• New York City / New Jersey area:  NYC/NJ FIRST
• Chicago area: ChiBots
• North Carolina: RoboCup Jr and JETS – Junior Engineering and Technical Society
• And in Montreal Quebec: Zone01

One of my favorites is the Mclaren F1 car.  Built to scale with a working gearbox, suspension, doors and a V12 engine!

There are some neat sub-models too.  Like the Splitter (converts a single motor output to a left-turning and right-turning output), and a steerable walking robot (called the  Hexapod). He also has a Battlebot, made from the RCX system.  It actually uses two RCX’s, one for the joystick, and one for the bot itself.

Alas, the site seems to be dormant.  Nothing updated in awhile.  But there are still some great models here.

Some of his criteria were:

• rolling barrels (using LEGO barrels if possible)
• Donkey Kong throwing the barrels
• a barrel-jumping minifig
• ladders and ramps that closely resembled the originals

He ended up using minifigs for Mario and the girl.  And then he found the troll.  Looks close enough to a gorilla, right?  

In addition, he used a light sensor to detect when a barrel was rolling, a motor to carry the barrels from the bottom to the top (and send them rolling) and another motor to control the jumping action.  For the complete details, including a video of the game in action, check out Dan’s LEGO Donkey Kong page.