We have chosen our computer systems, but not our shock isolation strategy. Thank you for your suggestion for shock plates. We will give that a try!Quote:
Originally Posted by GoIsuzu
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We have chosen our computer systems, but not our shock isolation strategy. Thank you for your suggestion for shock plates. We will give that a try!Quote:
Originally Posted by GoIsuzu
Unless you are using an Ai type system, I think I'd skip the front locker. The steering is soo much different when the front is locked. It won't just go where you point it. Plus it may or may not imediately disengage when turned off. It sure would help get out of being stuck though. The solid state hard drives would be sweet too, but those are some pretty pricey little drives. Last time I checked a decent size one was like 4 to 5 grand. I guess it would cure about 95% of your vibration concerns though.
And yes, those are the correct ARB part numbers.
swordy: the lockers could be engaged while there is wheel spin present. I'd think they'd be smart enough to program the thing to get itself unstuck first, THEN get back on course.
I dunno, I'm pretty uneducated about the whole competition. It just seems logical for me to get out of a rough spot before concentrating on where I want to go. Of course the trick is to never get in the rough spots.... where do you start. I need more beer.
I don't want to sound like a downer, but your choice of vehicle for the DGC is largely irrelevant. It's not an off-road vehicle problem - it's a computer vision and mapping problem. I know, I was a software engineer on one of the original teams and spoke AT LENGTH to the DARPA people during the kick-off meeting at the Peterson Museum here in LA. We built a vehicle with dynamics that would pop the front windshield out of a VX at speed, so I am quite familiar with the development tree. And out weak point was software, not the "airframe."
80% of the 2nd gen teams out there thing they can solve this comp with a super off-road machine. What you need is some super software engineers in the areas of digital vision, path planning, fast control systems, etc. As a basic litmus test, if you can pretty much ignore GPS positioning in your Kalman filter, then you have a shot at getting into the course. (If you don't know what a Kalman is, then don't start cutting up your VX!)
Email me if you want, dan.danknick@gmail.com
Dan
PS: If you're just doing this for fun and don't have any serious intent of doing well, then ignore all of this and enjoy the ride!
How is a digital camera supposed to tell the difference between good traction and no traction?
I understand that it can identify obstacles, but sometimes you need all 4 wheels delivering power at once.
And if they wanted the ultimate offroad vehicle, I don't think they would have picked a VX.
I'm afraid that I'd have to agree here. While the VX is capable enough, I really hate to see one getting cut up for this challenge. Why not a nice retired dune buggy/desert racer (think Chenowith-framed) or something? Something with a soft, flexy suspension that only weighs 2000 lbs or so. RWD with a locker would be adequate with good (flotation) tires and a light chassis.Quote:
Originally Posted by Maugan_VX
However, I can't side with the 4WD front/rear locker concept. While super-cool, it is also super-expensive, and super-complicated. A problem remains a problem, regardless of how much money you throw at it. While it's nice to dream, the reality of the situation is this: If the vehicle has troubles, it's going to be 95% software/vision related.
The last thing that I'd like to see is an uber-expensive modified VX frantically spinning it's tires at the bottom of a gully that it drove itself into.
As a programmer for over 25 years, I agree with your assessment. We have other programmers on the team also. We are doing this for fun *and* intend to do well... meet our team here:Quote:
Originally Posted by megadan
http://www.austinrobot.com/team
I'm excited about this whole thing and I have a pretty good feeling about this. Especially when the bottom of their webpage says this:
"Those who say it cannot be done should not interrupt the person doing it." -- Chinese Proverb :yeso:
Hello vehicross.info members:
My brother Art told me about this excellent website! Thanks to all the site members for their invaluable advice and support! Our robotic VehiCROSS can already drive autonomously, following a series of predefined waypoints. This is definitely going to be a fun ride!
Jorge
Hello megadan:Quote:
Originally Posted by megadan
Your comments show you are well-versed in the fields of robotics and engineering. Yes, we do have engineers on our team who know control theory and yes we will have a Kalman filter. Thanks for the pointers! I'd love to hear more about your experiences in the previous Grand Challenge.
Jorge
Hello mbeach:Quote:
Originally Posted by mbeach
As a car enthusiast, I agree with your comments. I hate to see any car cut up for any reason. After having owned our VehiCROSS "robot" for the past 2 months, I want to buy another one just for myself :-) One of our self-imposed criteria is to "show respect" for our VehiCROSS. We are saving and carefully labeling every nut and bolt and piece of trim we remove from the car. After the race is over, our goal is to be able to assemble the VehiCROSS back to as close to mint condition as possible.
As far as using a retired dune buggy, you are right. The crux of the matter is software, machine vision, and control theory. We could conceivably strap our cameras and vision algorithms to a beat up Ford pickup and do just as well as with our VehiCROSS. Did you ever see the movie "Back to the Future"? In this movie Marty asks Doc why he used a DeLorean? To which Doc replies: "--If you're going to build a time machine into a car, why not do it with some style?" I think the same applies to us :-) If you are going to go through the immense trouble of building a robotic car, why not use a head-turning bad-*** looking little SUV like the VehiCROSS? We are very happy with our choice... and we are doing our best to show it the respect it deserves :-)
Jorge
amen style is everthing..... :cool:
That's good enough for me!Quote:
Originally Posted by Jorge
I was reviewing the results of the DGC last year (just to see exactly what obstacles the racers would be faced with), there were some pretty neat concepts out there. I wanted to find out what the failures were on some of the top vehicles. Is there a 'list' of this information available to you?
As far as using a retired dune buggy, you are right. The crux of the matter is software, machine vision, and control theory. We could conceivably strap our cameras and vision algorithms to a beat up Ford pickup and do just as well as with our VehiCROSS. Did you ever see the movie "Back to the Future"? In this movie Marty asks Doc why he used a DeLorean? To which Doc replies: "--If you're going to build a time machine into a car, why not do it with some style?" I think the same applies to us :-) If you are going to go through the immense trouble of building a robotic car, why not use a head-turning bad-*** looking little SUV like the VehiCROSS? We are very happy with our choice... and we are doing our best to show it the respect it deserves :-)
I'm wiping a tear from my eye. That was beautiful. YOU GUYS ROCK! :-)
01001001 00100000 01100001 01100111 01110010 01100101 01100101 00100000 01110111 01101001 01110100 01101000 00100000 01000100 01101111 01100011 00101110 00100000 01000110 01110101 01101110 01100011 01110100 01101001 01101111 01101110 00100000 00101011 00100000 01100110 01101111 01110010 01101101 00100000 00111101 00100000 01100001 01110010 01110100 00101110 00100000 00100000 00111010 00101001
Amen
01010011 01110111 01101111 01110010 01100100 01111001 00111010 00100000 01110100 01110010
01100001 01101110 01110011 01101101 01101001 01110011 01110011 01101001 01101111 01101110
00100000 01110010 01100101 01100011 01100101 01101001 01110110 01100101 01100100 00100000
01100001 01101110 01100100 00100000 01100001 01100011 01101011 01101110 01101111 01110111
01101100 01100101 01100111 01100101 01100100 00100001 00100001 00100001 00100000 00111010
00101101 00101001
:-)
We received the Parnelli Jones Dirt Grips... they are heavy, and they look like they mean business... can't wait to put them on!
Thanks for the help selecting them.
Our Ironman VX looks out of this world...
http://www.wildtoys.com/vehicross/im..._pg104_800.jpg
Art
If you have time and want to.. Just as any member, please post pics of your progress in the gallery.. I'd even do up a special category for ya
Here is your competition...
http://www.pirate4x4.com/albums/album16/aad.thumb.jpg
http://www.pirate4x4.com/albums/album16/aac.thumb.jpg
The vehicle they started with is a Scorpion
pics didnt work. respost em please. art, jorge, you guys should post some pics, i really want to see what youve created.
mark-
The pics from Pirate won't work as they don't allow external linking
Those are great pictures of the Scorpion 4x4, thanks for the link!
I'll try to post a picture of our VX soon.
We are getting the VehiCROSS.info sticker printed at FastSigns... very reasonable prices... don't know how they make a profit really.
Our list of sponsors has grown and as ya'll know there isn't much room on a VX for stickers, we'll try to display prominently.
Haven't put the new tires on yet, looking into runflats/bead locks... will need new wheels for the solution we are thinking of there.
Why not steel rims?Quote:
Originally Posted by Swordy
I believe the only stupid question is the one that is never asked (except maybe "Don't you think it is about time you audited my return?")
Be glad to throw you some dough for the troubles..Quote:
Originally Posted by Art
Is it going to be in color? May want to get some more made up.. Can't wait to see it!
THANK YOU!!
So wheres the pics Bubba?!?!
Wonder what ever happened to this? Have never even been contacted and I live in the same small town. I like it much better when people DO something first and THEN talk about it. Any pics on their website seem to be protected from viewing and no address is listed for them.
Looking at their website, they've been busy... and they've been invited to the first dance. Congrats! Following is a paste from their website:
DARPA invites Austin Robot Technology to NQE
August 23, 2005
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) announced today that Austin Robot Technology has been invited to the Grand Challenge 2005 National Qualification Event (NQE) to be held September 28 to October 6, 2005 at the California Speedway, Fontana, California. The two other alternate teams invited by DARPA to the NQE include Princeton University and Team Underdawg from San Jose, California.
Forty-three teams are now invited to compete at the NQE, 20 of which will advance from the NQE to the final Grand Challenge Event on October 8.
Perceptive readers will note a time lag between this entry and the previous entry on this page. "--Rest assured that means we have been hard at work on our robot, if not our website," quipped Austin Robot Technology's team leader :-) "--We have lots of photos of our vehicle and other content we want to publish on our website. We'll start working on it October 9th."
...
and a quote from their website:
"Those who say it cannot be done should not interrupt the person doing it." -- Chinese Proverb
Kobie,
I'd like to check it out. What is their website?
Peace.
Tom
That's odd. There was a press release a month or two ago from DARPA that listed all of the groups that made the first cut and I specifically looked for these guys and did not find them on the list. After that, I stopped paying attention.
Hello Tom,Quote:
Originally Posted by tomdietrying
I got your email via our website today :-) Thanks for the personal email!
Jorge
Hello Tone,Quote:
Originally Posted by Tone
I replied to your earlier post (last May) and invited you to send us an email if you wanted to come check out our robot. Sorry if you didn't see the post:
http://www.vehicross.info/forums/sho...99&postcount=6
In case the above link does not work, it was post #6 on the following topic "Heavy duty brush guard for VX". The invitation still holds... Send us an email if you would like to come check it out, but we are now in super, SUPER crunch time... three weeks before our robot needs to compete head-to-head with Carnegie Mellon's $3,000,000 robot, and against Stanford, Caltech, Cornell, and others... whew! Piece-o-cake ;-)
Thanks,
Jorge
Hello Kobie,Quote:
Originally Posted by kobie
As you can imagine, it's been an unbelievable amount of hard work! Thanks for the good wishes! Tom sent me an email which prompted me to log back into y'alls website (vehicross.info). I guess I haven't been active enough at vehicross.info to call it "our" website yet ;-) Sorry I haven't been more active...
Jorge
Hello WyrreJ,Quote:
Originally Posted by WyrreJ
NOTE: Wow... this ended up being a longer post than I thought when I started writing it... Sorry for the long post :-)
DARPA originally intended to invite 40 teams to the National Qualification Event (NQE) to be held at the California Speedway September 28 through October 5th. The original cut of 40 teams were selected after the results of the first site visit (DARPA representatives visited more than 100 teams). During our first site visit back in May, our robot successfully avoided the random obstacles (plastic trashcans) placed by DARPA along the test track.
Unfortunately (due to technical glitches and due to the fact that this is an INCREDIBLY hard problem ;-) Our robot did the runs only at idle speed (and DARPA wants a *fast* robot). We therefore did not make the first cut of 40 teams... but DARPA realized there were several really good teams that were left out, so they bent the rules a bit (they are the DoD, and they *make* the rules, so they can bend them if they want :-) Basically DARPA decided to select the top nine teams who did not qualify and award them "alternate" status. The original intent was to use the alternate teams to fill any spots if one of the top 40 teams had to drop out of the race. The ranking of the "alternate" teams would be used to determine which teams would get invited first. Back in June DARPA scheduled a second site visit for all the alternate teams and DARPA announced that they *may* invite the top 3 teams to participate at the NQE depending on the results of the 2nd site vist. Here is a link to the DARPA press release:
http://www.darpa.mil/grandchallenge/...nal_July_5.pdf
So for the past 3 months we have been kind of like an NFL Wildcard team :-) I guess it was not too bad making it to the same list a Princeton University ;-)
Two weeks ago DARPA came and visited our robot again, and we were fortunately selected as one of the top 3 teams. As a matter of fact, the top three alternate teams had a strong enough showing that DARPA invited them (us) to the NQE as actual bona-fide semi-finalists:
http://www.darpa.mil/grandchallenge/...ss_Release.pdf
We are no longer an alternate team... we will compete on the same footing and on equal ground as the rest of the 40 teams selected in June. So at the end of September you will see our team at the California Speedway, competing against the big boys :-) MY GOSH!!! IS THAT REALLY LESS THAN FOUR WEEKS AWAY?!?!?!
Thanks for the interest... gotta run... I'm trying to figure out the max safe speed for the robot given the radius of curvature of upcoming curves :-)
Jorge
Hello Swordy,Quote:
Originally Posted by Swordy
Sorry I haven't been keeping up to date with the vehicross.info forum...
I have hundreds of pictures, most of which I haven't even uploaded to our own website... No time :-( After the race is over I promise to figure out how to upload pictures into vehicross.info and I promise to upload more pictures than you can wave a stick at :-)
In the meantime, and by way of making amends :-) here is a web page that has some pics of the robot, and *even more exciting* it has some pics of our first site visit in May where you can see our robot driving around the obstacles set by DARPA representatives (plastic trashcans :-) I created this page for Col. Starr of the Texas National Guard at Camp Mabry in Austin when we were trying to obtain permission for using Camp Mabry for our 2nd site visit:
http://www.austinrobot.com/misc/dsv_summary/
Since then we have added laser rangefinders and cameras to the rooftop mount. The robotic VX is quite a headturner :-)
Thanks,
Jorge
You mean like going to war with Iraq? You're right, talking about stuff first is a waste of time. We should just act on instincts like animals. :pQuote:
Originally Posted by Tone
I have use a wheelbarrow inner tube with a board on top for damping heavy objects like microscopes.
If the bag burst with motor oil you would have a mess. I would use water with gelatin packages from the grocery and add a few drops of bleach to stop alge growth. Water cleans up easier.
Cheers, Roy
Hmm ... California Speedway
That is not too far from a lot of us L.A. VXers. Is it possible that we can meet up with you? I think that would be a very cool thing to do.
Hello Anita,Quote:
Originally Posted by Anita
Our team is allowed 25 guest passes at the California Speedway. I can't make any promises yet because we have to make sure all our sponsors and family members get passes, but we may have a couple we can make available for a day. If you think you would like to make use of the guest passes, please keep in touch with me and I'll try to save some for you. The best way to reach me is to go to our website (www.austinrobot.com) and send me email via the "Contact Us" link.
Thanks,
Jorge