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They somehow managed to get their technicians to be recognized as engineers in Quebec.

http://www.etsmtl.ca/nouvelles/2011/Voiture-solaire

http://translate.google.ca/translate?sl=fr&tl=en&js=n&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&layout=2&eotf=1&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.etsmtl.ca%2Fnouvelles%2F2011%2FVoiture-solaire&act=url

Anyways, I work 5 minutes from ETS, maybe I can drop by tomorrow and take a look.

Here are the websites for the top three competitors:

1. University of Maryland
2. University of Texas at Dallas
3. Ecole de technologie superieure

The AUVSI's website also mentions that media coverage will be available soon. In the meantime, you can always look at some videos from the SONIA team.

Triangulation of radio signals is not accurate enough to give sub-centimeter accuracy and the added mass to the tennis ball would probably cause the players to have some objection to adding a radio transmitter into the ball.

The claim that the Hawkeye system gives an average of about four millimetres of error seems somewhat reasonable, given that we're getting accuracy greater better than two centimetres on detecting objects with a single camera with optics as large as the last segment of a typical pinky. (FWIW, here's a short demo of what we're working on for our autonomous underwater vehicle)

However, the suggestion to display the error range for a particular shot and leaving the final decision to a human from TFA is quite reasonable and is how it should be. Blindingly trusting technology or discarding it altogether is unreasonable.

Our team(SONIA) is working on autonomous underwater vehicles and we are using Linux with Java for the AI part. For communication with actuators, we use the CAN bus, which is fairly common in the industrial automation and automotive fields.

There are CAN bus adapters that plug into serial or USB ports and there is Linux support for these. We're using one from Vector.

As for hardware, we use the Kontron JREX SBC with JFlex I/O boards to add the I/O ports we need(firewire and serial, mostly). Of course, if you're not cramped for space, you might go with something a bit larger.

I hope this helps, feel free to ask more questions.

so in canada we can. This is were I graduate this summer:
http://www.etsmtl.ca/english/index.html

the software engineering degree is acknowledged by the BCAPI.
http://www.ccpe.ca/e/ccpe_boards_2.cfm

more info there about the differences between comp sci, IT eng, software eng, electrical eng, etc:
www.computer.org

Would have been nice to mention that 2nd place was ETS in the post and not MIT, Cornell or Duke...

Nice work guys! Wished I could have done so well while I was in the team:

http://www.auvsi.org/competitions/2005/05finalstan dings.cfm

Note that the submarine has always been using Linux as the main OS except for the first year where it was just microcontrollers:

http://sonia.etsmtl.ca/en/ETS_jpaper_2005.pdf

In fact, I was inspired to help start a team at ETS after seeing the slashdot.org post in 1999 when MIT won with a Linux-driven AUV.

Hehehe! Being from ETS (and in an engineering team myself, our school's solar car team), had to bring this up, ETS too unclassed MIT :) (by finishing 2nd)

Go S.O.N.I.A.! Good job guys!

Yeah, &!#@* Eclipse!

Our hydromas model has been able to do that for a while now, though it doesn't have a seat so it wouldn't be too comfortable.

The MIT teams evolution is similar if less extreme. The current car is a moderately streamlined high-deck-and-bubble job with its wheels unshrouded. The 1999 car has a similar body but shrouded wheels.

In fact, more or less streamlined high-deck-and-bubble designs seem to be the theme of this years race. These vehicles look hugely vulnerable to crosswinds.

Well we at ETS in Montreal have completely gone VoIP since last march. Now there's big, beautiful and expensive Cisco phones everywhere :)

yeah, but if you want to read about the WORLD FASTEST HUMAN POWERED SUBMARINE, you'll have to check out our school sub, Omer ;-)

Hey, if you need aquatic, you can do it yourself and enter the AUVSI competition next year :

http://www.auvsi.org/auvcomp.htm

And if you've got money, you can sponsor us ;-):

http://www.auvsi.org/auvcomp.htm