A Decade Later

DISCLAIMER: the opinionated political satire expressed here is in no way affiliated or aligned with the views of Cornell University or any other entity.

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.

This weekend, November 3 to be exact, marks ten years since the first self-driving cars took to the streets of DARPAville.  Epochs like these, measurably significant on the yardstick that is human life, offer a rare oasis of mindfulness in our frenzied world.  It doesn't feel like a decade to me, except when I look back to see the wake the boat's made.  Then I notice that the lines etched in my face aren't from the desert winds anymore, and the tiredness that clouds my eyes no longer hints at a late night field test.  Then I smile at my twenties-turned-thirties, at how I'm still the same engineer but now also a leader, a mentor, a husband, and a father.  As Bob Dylan once wrote, oh the times, they are a changing.

Ten years ago, my phone was just a phone.  A flip phone, for those who remember what that was.  It called people, most of the time, and that was pretty much it.  Also FAANG wasn’t a thing: Facebook was TheFacebook, and it had only recently opened up from something exclusive to the Ivy League.  Amazon did not deliver your groceries or your medicine, and certainly not by drone, and its destiny wasn’t intertwined with a major newspaper.  Apple’s killer product was still an iPod, because the first iPhone had just been released.  Netflix had only started offering streaming services earlier that year, and Google wouldn’t be doing moonshots for another four years yet.  Hogwarts was the place to be.  Westeros wouldn’t be a thing for several more years.  Governing meant passing laws and enforcing them, not trading insults over Twitter.  Twitter, for that matter, wasn’t really a thing yet.  Global warming was still a thing though, and it was still caused by us.  Some things don’t change, but many of them do.

Once upon a time we built an autonomous vehicle, because that’s what we called self-driving cars back then.  We stuffed it full of lasers, cameras, radars, GPS, computers, antennas, WiFi, cell connections, and a bunch of other stuff I’m probably forgetting.  Today most cars on the road have that stuff standard, I wear a GPS / IMU / WiFi / cell device on my wrist, and I’m pretty sure we could run our car’s entire 17-computer software stack on the latest flagship smartphone.  We’ve come a long way, so let’s take a moment to remember our journey in a 1980’s-movie-ending-jump-up-and-freeze-frame sort of way:

The Media Cart of Science, here configured with a laser rangefinder for automotive tracking.  That technology is now on track to be a multi-billion dollar industry:

Our peerless engineering, which has now found its way into more than a billion peoples’ lives:

Our prototyping with Mobileye, back before they were a multi-billion dollar company:

Our joyful celebration after our early successes:

And the aftermath of blowing those doughnuts in that field:

If this were a movie, the Spirit would be the one character who didn’t learn anything:

How we single-handedly kept the sugary beverages industry alive and well:

And how sketchy became the most overused word in our collective vocabulary:

I’m pretty sure this water tower fell down a few years ago, as if to heave one final sigh:

Here’s our car's 17-inch touchscreen, at least five years before they came standard in a Tesla:

Remembering how our advisor really wanted to get rid of his old car, but our software just wouldn’t oblige:

We bought a large truck because we needed to train our software on vehicles of all sizes:

…and then ended up taping it shut when the door broke:

We were unabashed in our opinions of “normal” navigation software:

And we had to tear apart the car to replace a broken sensor the day before the final competition:

But what we designed, we really designed, because that’s how we rolled:

And let us not forget he who left this world far, far too soon by dedicating a small corner of the blogosphere to E.G., may he rest in peace.  Look how far a dream can reach!

At ten years I say this to my friends, my mentors, my advisors and my teachers:

Here’s to another decade of impact, guys.  Best team ever.