Mods for robotic VX

[Moncha]

The pics from Pirate won't work as they don't allow external linking

[Triathlete]

Them Bastards!
Looks like someone fixed them into a link...thanks.

Here is the big pictures ...and the other one .

[Art]

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.

[Art]

Use some strong cast smaller diameter rims. Not steel.

Why not steel rims?

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?")

[Moncha]

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.

Be glad to throw you some dough for the troubles..

Is it going to be in color? May want to get some more made up.. Can't wait to see it!

THANK YOU!!

[Swordy]

So wheres the pics Bubba?!?!

[Tone]

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.

[kobie]

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

[tomdietrying]

Kobie,
I'd like to check it out. What is their website?
Peace.
Tom

[Moncha]

http://www.austinrobot.com/

[WyrreJ]

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.

[Jorge]

I'd like to check it out. What is their website?

Hello Tom,

I got your email via our website today :-) Thanks for the personal email!

Jorge

[Jorge]

Wonder what ever happened to this? Have never even been contacted and I live in the same small town.

Hello 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

[Jorge]

Looking at their website, they've been busy... and they've been invited to the first dance. Congrats!

Hello 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

[Jorge]

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.

Hello 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