DARPA Grand Challenge Photos
 

Well, today was the first day for DGC inspections and qualifying runs. Team Caltech is currently in the lead. In fact, only two teams managed to get their 'bots off of the starting line. Palos Verdes High School was the other team that managed to do at least part of the qualifying course. Team Caltech was doing beautifully until we ran into a wall two-thirds of the way through. Turns out that the portion of the code that puts the 'bot in reverse to back out of a cul-de-sac was commented out late last night while testing (DOH!). Anyway, we're pretty confident that we'll make it through our second run on Wednesday. The Red Team showed up and worked on their 'bot all day. Hopefully we'll get to see them run tomorrow. As things were kinda frantic today, I only got to take a few photos. I'll try to get some more tomorrow.

-Kevin

Here's Bob (Team Caltech's entry) just out of the starting gate:



Here's Bob doin' his thing:



Red Team's 'bot:





Ohio State's Entry (this bad-boy is waaay over the top):

Re: DARPA Grand Challenge Photos
 

Man that last one is totally awesome. But I guess yours moves so that is what counts. We'll be out there on Wednsday at about 10:30 AM on our way to Phoenix.

Re: DARPA Grand Challenge Photos
 

Kevin,
Do you know if there's a webcast anywhere? or a central web site with pics/updates?

Re: DARPA Grand Challenge Photos
 

I have no idea what DARPA has planned. You might check their website.

-Kevin

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Wow, there were only 3 entries? I would've assumed many more people would have gotten in on that. Good luck to you guys! I hope Bob does awesome!

Re: DARPA Grand Challenge Photos
 

No, there are over twenty teams.

-Kevin

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Dude, those are awesome. I think I saw something on the news about this. Is that true or no. It might have been something different. Anyway, those are awesome

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What is team Caltech doing for gas storage? I didn't see any large tanks or anything. Is the stock tank enough? Also, if the engine dies, do you have automatic restart attempts? Last, did you modify the suspension at all. Also, I'm curious of how it shifts (what type of linkage and actuator).

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Looks awesome, If they have anything about it like webcasts or anything it would be during the weekend that we compete. :-(

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Well, it's optimistic, but we do have an aux. fuel tank that can be switched under computer control.


Yes.


Yes, it's been lifted four inches and we have some very cool kevlar lined B.F. Goodrich tires (the same ones used on military humvees).


We're using an UltraMotion linear stepper motor that handles the shifting.

-Kevin

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The Miracle Workerz (Team 365) and I give our full support to Team Virginia Tech. On Team Virginia Tech, there are 2 Miracle Workerz Alumni from our rookie year (2000), who are also sons of engineers on our team. This is a great example of how FIRST prepares you for real world engineering problem. From a robot which scoops balls and hangs under human control to one that navigates the desert autonomously, it is a natural progression.

Good Luck to Team Caltech and all the other teams as well. I sincerely hope that someone succeeds in this task. It is a great test of American ingenuity; one I am sure we will pass.

Kevin, if you have any pictures of the Virginia Tech team and their robot "Cliff" could you please post them.

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Good luck with the competition, guys! I can only imagine the fundraising for that project...some of those vehicles look like NASCAR Cars...:yikes:

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THAT IS SOOOO AWESOME!!!

Man I wanna do that so bad... I'm lookin at collages now and Caltech and Carnegie Mellon are lookin real good because they got DARPA entries...

Do you know if the CMU team is better after they rolled last week? It didn't look good...

Wow! Awsome....

Good luck!!!

-Andy

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Does it bother anyone else that this is all run by DARPA? :( Or have I read too much Vonegut? I do love the concept though.

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Who else has the money and the desire to run something like this? :rolleyes:

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There was a story on CNN headline news about a week ago about University of Louisiana - Lafayette's entry.

My full support goes out to all of the participants (especially PV high, gonna have to root for the young guns).

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There are all sorts of good news stories that I have seen about this. Those vehicles are so cool. They are sort of going to act like the rovers on Mars when the engineers tell them to go somewhere and take it's on path to get there. I would love a webcast or other live footage, even if it is after the event.


I found pics on their site here

I would also like to root for the young gun high schoolers and their Acura MDX named "Doom Buggy". I do believe that they won't win the competition, however, that team is just like FIRST teams. The students are all getting great hands-on knowledge and having fun in a competition. They are getting the inspiration that will hopefully lead them into the science and technology fields.

The media coverage of this has said that about 100 teams applied, but DARPA chose only 25 to compete, because they could not handle more than that.

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Yes, the CMU folks pulled it together over the last three days and were completely operational (Their workarea is next to ours so we got to watch 'em work). CMU, on their first QID run, ran perfectly. We (Team Caltech) also ran a perfect QID run today. Friday afternoon we'll move Bob to Barstow before the race on Saturday.

-Kevin

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Do you know the particular route yet and where it takes you, and what kind of terrain there is on the route???I'm guessing it's not just all flat terrain!

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No, we won't know until 4:00AM Saturday morning. Col. Negron (the head DARPA guy) said that the course will be very tough in last nights team meeting. I don't think anyone will complete the race this year because this is a really, really tough problem.

-Kevin

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One of the side benefits of having the California Speedway all to yourself:



That's my '94 Ford Taurus SHO in the pits. To get to the practice area, you have to drive to the other side of the speedway on the track. Needless to say, I've been spending a lot of time driving to/from the practice area :D.

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Yeah, it bothers me, but it's still extremely unique, interesting and educational and nobody says that the teams have to turn around and hire out to the DoD when this is over.... do they?

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Kevin- How is the Ohio State Terramax team doing? Did they pass inspection and run the demo course yet? I couldn't find a status page to check for myself, although there is a nice status page for Saturday's run that I plan on checkig frequently on Saturday. http://www.grandchallenge.org Good luck by the way!! -Joe

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No, you don't have to give 'em anything. The only thing they get is the technical paper and whatever data they can collect with their "e-stop" box and it's built-in GPS receiver.

-Kevin

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I'm not sure if they ran the entire QID course. On Tuesday we witnessed the Terramax (TerrorMax?) entry run into the back of a blue minivan the DARPA folks had placed in the middle of the course. DARPA remotly paused the 'bot and then allowed it to resume at which time it continued to push the minivan one and a half car lengths before it was disabled again. It was great fun to watch. Later that night, at the team meeting, one of the DARPA guys joked that the resale value of the blue van had diminished markedly during the day. To make the event more interesting, I hope they get to run in the race (I just hope they start ahead of us :D ).

-Kevin

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Meh. Most of the United States robotics programs are funded by Darpa. In fact they fund a lot of things that if you really try to think about have no use in defense. Also Darpa funds the W3C.

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Grand Challenge 1, Competitors 0 [Slashdot]

Sorry to hear about that :(

When is take two?

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The next event is scheduled for 2006. Since no one won the prize money also rolls over to the next event.

Here's a link http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=stor...5628_2004mar13

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2006 wow..

Well at least all the teams now have a good idea of what the competition entails, and now they defiently have a boat load of time to work on there vehicles.

-Aaron

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I would like to say congratulations to all the competitors for attempting this enormous challenge, and may your reasearch continue. All of the vehicles entered are amazing engineering feats, but one of my favorites is the Blue Team's motorcycle. Just to stabilize a motorcycle autonomously over flat ground would be difficult.

Hopefully some of these teams fix their problems and do some more testing so we can see someone get at least half way next time!

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First off, congratulations to all teams that participated! You have had to overcome some very pressing problems and hopefully have learned volumes from your experiences.

However, I see a particular silver lining to this thundercloud. Many of us (high school students- juniors and up) will be able to participate in this competition next time!

I think that is AWESOME!!!

Much of the technologies that were developed as a result of the FIRST competition by our team (and I'm sure by others) could easily be put to practical use by entrants into the DARPA Grand Challenge.

This has been a wonderful publicity stunt for robotics. Hopefully this inspires many aspiring roboticists to continue their interests into the professional field.

Either way, CONGRATULATIONS!

Your bot at least MOVES in autonomous mode! :D

This is so cool!

-Andy

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It was just announced at the DGC reception, here in Primm NV, that the race would be run again in one year and the pot o' money would be increased to two million dollars. Team Caltech starts working on their new-and-improved 'bot on Monday :).

-Kevin

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I don't understand what the : / faces at DARPA are for
What's your beef with them?