Trial by tire -or- trouble in DARPAville
DISCLAIMER: the opinionated political satire expressed here is in no way affiliated or aligned with the views of Cornell University.
DISCLAIMER: the technical investigations of this team should in no way be perceived as anything but a dedicated and rigorous research effort. Please do not reproduce or otherwise make available any portion of the material found within unless permission is obtained from the author first.
...And here we find ourselves at NQE. I know it's been a long time since I've written, but NQE has been super hectic. Things were a bit disorganized at first, but I think DARPA has done an exceptional job keeping things very safe and very controlled. After all, each of us has put his blood, sweat, and tears into these cars, and we'd all hate to see them destroyed.
So what has happened? Well, we arrived on Thursday (maybe... I've kinda lost track of what day it is exactly). We set up camp in our puny pit area, gratiously supplied with nothing... no power, no water, no shelter, and some porta-potties that seem to run out of everything entirely too fast. I toured around all the cars, trying to talk to as many people as possible. I met some fantastic folks from UCF, Virginia Tech, Insight Racing, and many others, and I caught up with some good old friends over at Teams Cajunbot and Caltech. I like hearing everybody's stories about their cars- you know, the things the media never asks about. That's what makes a venue like this so unique, because all of us techies can really understand and appreciate some of the difficult things each of us has accomplished. I would post pictures (I will eventually), but unfortunately I'm currently pulling my internet connection off a cellular modem connected to a laptop that has been stepped on, dropped, vibrated and heated to death on the DGC '05 generator, and I believe even run over. Needless to say, the connection is not so good.
We've run twice so far- once each in two out of the three NQE areas. We didn't make it through area B- a basic navigation run, for one legitimate reason and one stupid reason. We've promised not to give details of what happened exactly, since the course is not visible to the public. We drove well and failed safely though, so I'm hoping DARPA will consider that as NQE progresses.
Area A was a heart attack waiting to happen- a circle of bi-directional traffic into which our car had to merge repeatedly. The traffic was supplied by DARPA- a fleet of specially-outfitted Ford Tauruses driven by professional stunt drivers, no less. The whole thing is very eerie... concrete barriers and vehicle sirens drown out the Taurus' engines, and the stunt drivers are all very synchronized. It gives of the distinct impression of being a creepy carnival ride starting and stopping, so much so that I think it would be complete with a little slow waltz or circus music in some minor key. The situation is very difficult to merge into, with very tight tolerances required to avoid the evil fleet of Tauruses on your left and some menacing concrete barriers on the right. I had a terrible night sleeping last night, thinking, 'frick, the car's gonna crash, the car's gonna crash...' and then waking up and whirling about how this or that under some impossibly unlikely situation would cause our car to destroy its front bumper- a $28000 mistake. To top that all off the entire course is very small and completely visible to the public, so you just have to sit there and sweat bullets while it's all happening. It's the kind of thing that excites morbid curiosity: you don't want to watch, but you just have to do it anyway.
Well, to cut a long story short, our car made it through. (!) We didn't cause a single accident (the DARPA drivers prevent accidents, but honk if they would've occurred). We checked the data logs- we came within 20 cm of the concrete barrier at one point (make fists with your hands and stack them one on top of another: that's about 20 cm). I'm glad the guys told me about that *after* the run was over, because otherwise I'd have to go change my pants. Still, it's pretty slick (*cough* scary *cough*) that the planner knows its boundaries that well.
I need to run to dinner now, but I want to let any competitors know that they've all done amazing jobs with their cars- trust me, I looked. The media might not appreciate or even care about those multi-month technical accomplishments hiding in each one of our tamed behemoths, but I sure do.
DISCLAIMER: the technical investigations of this team should in no way be perceived as anything but a dedicated and rigorous research effort. Please do not reproduce or otherwise make available any portion of the material found within unless permission is obtained from the author first.
...And here we find ourselves at NQE. I know it's been a long time since I've written, but NQE has been super hectic. Things were a bit disorganized at first, but I think DARPA has done an exceptional job keeping things very safe and very controlled. After all, each of us has put his blood, sweat, and tears into these cars, and we'd all hate to see them destroyed.
So what has happened? Well, we arrived on Thursday (maybe... I've kinda lost track of what day it is exactly). We set up camp in our puny pit area, gratiously supplied with nothing... no power, no water, no shelter, and some porta-potties that seem to run out of everything entirely too fast. I toured around all the cars, trying to talk to as many people as possible. I met some fantastic folks from UCF, Virginia Tech, Insight Racing, and many others, and I caught up with some good old friends over at Teams Cajunbot and Caltech. I like hearing everybody's stories about their cars- you know, the things the media never asks about. That's what makes a venue like this so unique, because all of us techies can really understand and appreciate some of the difficult things each of us has accomplished. I would post pictures (I will eventually), but unfortunately I'm currently pulling my internet connection off a cellular modem connected to a laptop that has been stepped on, dropped, vibrated and heated to death on the DGC '05 generator, and I believe even run over. Needless to say, the connection is not so good.
We've run twice so far- once each in two out of the three NQE areas. We didn't make it through area B- a basic navigation run, for one legitimate reason and one stupid reason. We've promised not to give details of what happened exactly, since the course is not visible to the public. We drove well and failed safely though, so I'm hoping DARPA will consider that as NQE progresses.
Area A was a heart attack waiting to happen- a circle of bi-directional traffic into which our car had to merge repeatedly. The traffic was supplied by DARPA- a fleet of specially-outfitted Ford Tauruses driven by professional stunt drivers, no less. The whole thing is very eerie... concrete barriers and vehicle sirens drown out the Taurus' engines, and the stunt drivers are all very synchronized. It gives of the distinct impression of being a creepy carnival ride starting and stopping, so much so that I think it would be complete with a little slow waltz or circus music in some minor key. The situation is very difficult to merge into, with very tight tolerances required to avoid the evil fleet of Tauruses on your left and some menacing concrete barriers on the right. I had a terrible night sleeping last night, thinking, 'frick, the car's gonna crash, the car's gonna crash...' and then waking up and whirling about how this or that under some impossibly unlikely situation would cause our car to destroy its front bumper- a $28000 mistake. To top that all off the entire course is very small and completely visible to the public, so you just have to sit there and sweat bullets while it's all happening. It's the kind of thing that excites morbid curiosity: you don't want to watch, but you just have to do it anyway.
Well, to cut a long story short, our car made it through. (!) We didn't cause a single accident (the DARPA drivers prevent accidents, but honk if they would've occurred). We checked the data logs- we came within 20 cm of the concrete barrier at one point (make fists with your hands and stack them one on top of another: that's about 20 cm). I'm glad the guys told me about that *after* the run was over, because otherwise I'd have to go change my pants. Still, it's pretty slick (*cough* scary *cough*) that the planner knows its boundaries that well.
I need to run to dinner now, but I want to let any competitors know that they've all done amazing jobs with their cars- trust me, I looked. The media might not appreciate or even care about those multi-month technical accomplishments hiding in each one of our tamed behemoths, but I sure do.
posted by iceman at 9:43 PM
2 Comments:
New car looks bad ass.
http://cache.jalopnik.com/assets/resources/2007/10/cornell_darpa.jpg
Sure beats the Spider. I like the open door, way to get the Cornell in there. good luck guys.
I went out yesterday to watch you guys compete in Test Area B (the road course?). Glad to see it made it past the first stop sign, around the turn, and onto the straightaway behind the building, unlike the car that went before yours! Except then I lost sight of the car and have no idea how the run ended. Did the car finish the run itself, or did you guys drive it back?
Good luck. Keep us posted!
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