Robot club advice from a retired technology venture capitalist

Friday’s guest speaker at the TC Tinkers 4-H Robot Club was Bob Michaluk, a retired venture capitalist. Bob seems to be just an ordinary guy, easy to talk to. There is very little about him that would suggest that he used to...

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Friday’s guest speaker at the TC Tinkers 4-H Robot Club was Bob Michaluk, a retired venture capitalist.

Bob seems to be just an ordinary guy, easy to talk to. There is very little about him that would suggest that he used to deal in millions of dollars bringing entrepreneurs and money together to create startup technology companies. He was here Friday 10/15/2010 at the TC Tinkers Technical Library and Laboratory to interview some of the Members and Volunteers while sharing some of his stories about entrepreneurship and startup technology companies. He was also assessing the clubs “credibility.” By “credibility,” he did not doubt that the TC Tinkers is a 4-H club, but instead meant it as a measure of how attractive the club appears to potential donors. Image might be another word for it. 

I agree whole-heartedly with him that the TC Tinkers need to improve the Technical Library and Laboratory’s appearance, how to accomplish that is the question.  He returned Saturday 10/16/2010 with his hunting dog, Bella, to drop off his assessment of the TC Tinkers 4-H Robot Club and his two year plan. Part of that plan is for us to set up some of the exhibits we have sitting around here to show visitors the range of things that we do here.  Looking at each of the items on Bob’s checklist, they all would be fun things for both the youth Members and the adult Volunteers to do.

You will be able to follow the clubs progress here in this blog as we change how we work. You will get to see here which items are successful and which are not. Along the way, you may find many of the suggestions he has for the TC Tinkers could be used where you work.

The first part of the plan is a three month restart of the TC Tinkers 4-H Robot Club in which new Members, new Volunteers and returning ones will be recruited for the 2010-2011 fiscal year.

Did you see the last two posts about the autonomous robot?

- John Deere’s Robot Gator – Part 1 - revolutionary change; and

- Military transportation robot Part 2: Who drives? Who's the best gamer?

GO ROBOTS !

Paul F. Grayson - Chief Engineer, AMERICAN INDUSTRIAL MAGIC, LLC

"Small engine and machinery repair"

TC TINKERS 4-H ROBOT CLUB "Science, Engineering, and Technology"

390 4-Mile Rd. S., Traverse City, MI 49685

(231) 883-4463 Cell

pgrayson(at)aimagic.org

AIM: http://aimagic.org

TC Tinkers 4-H Robot Club:

http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/TC_TINKERS_4-H_Robot_Club/

groups.yahoo.com/group/TC_TINKERS_4-H_Robot_Club/join