October 24, 2007
Hello from Victorville!
Howdy! This is Bradley Farnsworth, the Sensors Tech Lead for Team Case. I'm blogging today from Victorville, CA, the site of the 2007 DARPA Urban Challenge.
In case you aren't familiar, DARPA is the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, and the Urban Challenge is a competition where autonomous (driver-less) robotic vehicles around the world will race against the clock to complete a 60 mile mission in a city environment in pursuit of a $2 million grand prize.
Today, we set up base camp in and around our rented 2007 Bounder 38' RV. We're proudly displaying our Case School of Engineering, Case Alumni Association, and Jolly Roger flags, and we've definitely got the most unique robot here. Most teams have modified street cars, and are very wary to let anyone too near to their finely tuned machines. Our robot's rugged custom Lothringer off-road racing chassis and lack of a driver's seat, along with our team members' cavalier and easy-going attitudes set us apart from the rest.
Today's activites included setting up simulation stations to predict the robot's behavior on the RNDF (route network definition files) that DARPA has provided to describe the roads and parking spaces at the test site. We also checked DEXTER over mechanically and electrically to make sure he is in tip-top shape.
Tomorrow, we'll put DEXTER through some more aggressive testing in preparation for the NQE, or National Qualifying Exam. Only a maximum of 20 out of 36 teams will pass NQE to go on to the actual competition on November 3. I think we've got a good shot, but there's still a lot of work to do in the week ahead!
Posted by: Bradley Farnsworth October 24, 2007 10:22 PM | Category: competition
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Posted by: bdf (Bradley Farnsworth) October 24, 2007 10:22 PM | Comments (1)
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Beautiful Victorville!