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Teach A Robot To Drive, Win A Million Bucks
An Anonymous Reader writes "DARPA has released the details of a 'Grand Challenge,' with a $1 million prize. The challenge is to build an autonomous vehicle which can 'navigate on its own over a 250-mile desert course in less than 10 hours.' from L.A. to Vegas, 'without external communication or human control.' The contest is to be conducted in March 2004, and is open to all comers. Can we get at least one entry to represent slashdot?" We've mentioned this contest a few times before: any intended entrants out there want to disclose your secret plans?
To get FP
in soviet-russia the car controls YOU!
dislose? Does that mean find them?
If two robot-driven cars got in an accident, how would one determine whose fault the accident was?
Just make it really really big, with treads, and a huge freaking mulcher on the front. Then, just let it travel in a straight line from LA to Vegas. Crushing everything in its path!
robot prime suspect for fridays hit and run accident which resulted in the death of several school aged children..
CAPS LOCK IS CRUISE CONTROL FOR COOL!!
"We've mentioned this contest a few times before: any intended entrants out there want to dislose your secret plans?"
:)
I could, but then I would have to kill you.
A car driven by this would fail in no time...
The challenge is to build an autonomous vehicle which can 'navigate on its own over a 250-mile desert course in less than 10 hours.' from L.A. to Vegas, 'without external communication or human control.'
:)
Somehow I have the feeling that 99% of the teams competing will try to figure out inventive, creative ways of using and obfuscating 'external communication or human control' as the first step.
Cover your eyes and click this link!
...until someone enters a Hummer with their own AI system on board. Then, the thing runs amok and moves at full throttle towards the Vegas strip. What'll they do then, shoot it with a missle? This is just plain irresponsible!
--sdem
Can we teach the humans to, as well?
but just pointing an old car in the right direction with the steering wheel and accelarator jammed would have a small chance of victory. It would make a lot more sense than playing the lottery, and on the off chance that it did work, it would piss off DARPA no end.
If I seem short sighted, it is because I stand on the shoulders of midgets
I was jkust talking with a fellow from the same university I attend, and there is a group that is has done this for a one mile range.
(It's a robot that finds a specific building within a one mile radius and does other things involving the building)
I hear they've got the "flying to a building within a 1 mile radius" part done. Wouldn't it be not much more difficult to extend the radius to 250 miles? What would be involved?
I guess the US Military has this one won. Just show them a cruise missile and launch it across 250mi of the area and then crash it. Or if they want to be nifty, have a parachute warhead that contains the 'brains' of the thing and can deploy wheels or landing gear to deploy at the end of the course.
Job? I don't have time to get a job! Who will sit around and bitch about being broke and unemployed then?
Who's piloting it, Bender?
Friends don't let friends use multiple inheritance.
...slashdotted 0.2 seconds after the contest starts.
alias uptime="echo '5:33pm up 22342352324 days, 6:28, 2124315623 users, load average: 2432.40, 12312.31, 123123.19'"
All you need is to hook up a camerea up do an artificial neural net and spend a couple hours teaching/progamming it to steer and throw in a cpu and run a rule based system with a well defined set of rules(for navigation,traffic laws, etc) and we're set. Piece of cake.
Now if someone could just teach the residents of Florida how to drive...
I Heart Sorting Networks
would you sell your soul to DARPA to fiddle with some gee-wiz neato gadgets?
It's cool that some robots can go over any terrain from LA to Las Vegas, but what I really want to see developed is a robot to get me out of the fucking LA traffic headed... well... anywhere, not just Vegas. Let it drive, pick me up and carry me, or hover - I don't really care. ugh... stupid drivers.
I plan to build a 250-mile-long car.
I think it would be beneficial for the municipalities to transfer control of their local highways to the Open Source developer community. Their hard work, dedication, and tremendous foresight would enable the eradication of congestive traffic especially during peak hours.
By providing drivers with common guidelines to follow in what fashion to drive and by controlling the surrounding transit lights, the Open Source developer community could reduce the average commute by 274%!!
Only when we realize the untapped potential contained within the Open Source developer community can increase the likelyhood of creating an environment-friendly fuel.
Wearing pants should always be optional.
low cost research for DARPA. I'm guessing that the prize money is a tiny fraction of the amount of money DARPA would normally pay for a university research group to accomplish the same task.
The good thing about this approach for the contestants if that they don't have to put up with the endless stream of DARP required reports, meetings, and politics.
But the devil ends up being in the details. While it probably would not be too hard to design a vehicle that could do this in a couples day or so, 250 miles in 10 hours means the vehicle would have to be averageing 25 mph. At 25 mph, there is not a whole lot of room for error. You would need a system that could react to environmental issues that came up very quickly such as obstacles, or dead end routes. You would also need to a system that could actually sense/see far enough ahead to steer the vehicle in the correct direction without running into things.
I'm going teach a chimp to drive and use cruise control!
Hoi-claven!
The bitter lessons of a veteran coder: http://bitterprogrammer.blogspot.com
If someone from Slashdot enters a vehicle, it should definitely be named "Autonomous Coward." :)
An infrastructure for automated control of land-based vehicles already exists, and it's under bankruptcy protection.
Have you seen my stapler?
With no external communication and tracking allowed, these robots will end up... who knows where? Who knows where?
:/
:/
That's right, who knows where! Be ready as the creators will have 5 hours to scout the desert for their robots before the sandstorm hits (or something)!
Nah, I'm sure the robots will be allowed to shoot a flare or something! Oh wait:
"...a vehicle that clears a path by setting everything in its way on fire, or a vehicle that digs large holes, are unacceptable.
Hmm..
Go ahead and try to find your robot after a sandstorm or something happens, and you have to 1) find it yourself magically 2) dig it up yourself because the robots aren't allowed to.
I hope DARPA go through with this contest, it's the most ingenious waste of taxpayer money ever--it can waste a $1,000,000 OR be the cheapest way to research an awesome design (whoever wins the contest.) I would so watch this on TV.
Cover your eyes and click this link!
How about we hire Anthony Daniels for a day or two? Give him a share of the prize money. Sorted.
Please read my Canon EOS tech blog at http://www.everyothershot.com
They had a robot driving the van at the end, sort of. It was remote controlled but still.. then the little camera turned and faced the guy who opened the door. That was funny. Reminded me of Short Circuit..
"I either want less corruption, or more chance
to participate in it." -- Ashleigh Brilliant
Because something can be done doesn't even mean it can be feasible/useful if possible. By example, I'm sure someone could completely fill up a car with electronics and make this work. What they need is to have "design/weight bonus" to the prize. I think this theory is proving very true in the TV industry right now. People just like Plasma TV's because they look cool and takke up a lot less space - it's certainly not for the picture quality that a similar sized high end (cheaper too) rear projection TV can provide. A similar product is the iPod, it's not only the smallest for the most capacity but has great design and great integration. Even Creative's ZenPlayer hasn't gotten the reviews of the iPod.
Yell & scream & rant & rave... it's no use... you need a shaaaave ~ Bugs Bunny
Is there any extra points for embedding a hatred of humankind?
Just ask Kenner for the original plans for this thing, and build it at 2500:1 scale..
Okay, okay, it would be totally against the rules. But it would be really cool!
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
I think about this problem off and on and I think that this project is conceivable. The key is to break down the software into separate pieces, each utilizing different types of computing. Mixtures of AI and traditional programming can be used to make this a reality.
My idea of the basic input system idea is based on layers:
Layer one: the camera(s)
two: various neural nets, each designed to filter out specific things. Fo example, one net would id cars (and their relative speeds), another the middle of the road (lanes), another the whole road. Maybe even one to find speed limit signs!
and tree: traditional algorithms which intepret the data from the neural net and use it to compute cars location, other cars locations, where the road is, what speed to go, etc etc.
This would allow the surrounding envornemt to be broken down into very simple data structures that traditional Algorithms can handle. I think the key to this problem is to divide and conquer, using the best tools for each part.
It should ot be difficult to train a NN to identify the boundaries of a road in the desert. The info from this can be transformed into 2d space and voila, you got a simplified but accurate view of the cars surroundings. Now just add NNs to id cars and you can use that for collision avboidance. I can go on and on, but you get the idea.
Can anybody imagine how much R&D would have to go into even an attempt, much less a successful one? $1 million doesn't even scratch the surface...
--sdem
Give a robot a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a robot to fish and you have income for a lifetime.
Mr Goat uses robot cars already. Here's a pic. Contact Mr Goat if you would like your car's exhaust pipe stretched to unearthly proportions. He will also install an AI system and teach it to drive.
The challenge here is real-time processing of vision data to handle obstacle avoidance, etc.
;)
They say that you can use "public navigation signals. So a GPS (and backup) receiver, along with a Digital Elevation Map of the area would be half the battle. But real-time stereoscopic vision is a bitch. The nice thing is that you can fit a whole lot of computing power into a medium sized car.
I suspect another big problem will be colliding with other bot cars... I'm thinking about running a Ford Pinto, which due to the placement of it's gas tank, will explode on impact. At least that away the other robot cars will FEAR mine and stay away
-JE
"You're always going to have problems moving a body in one piece" -- Brick Top
Does slapping a fedex label on yourself and jumping in the nearest drop box count as "external communication"?
References:
Ryan T. Sammartino
"Ancora imparo"
Can we get at least one entry to represent slashdot?
Sure ! I'll just donate my working prototype on behalf of this worthy cause. After all, I don't need a million bucks that badly... I'm sure VA Linux/Slashdot can use the money more than I can.
Can we get at least one entry to represent slashdot?
:)
I doubt it. But do notify us when there is a baloon race. We could donate loads and loads of hot air!
Its very annoying being a researcher with moral objections. DARPA is offering $40mil towards asynchronous research. Our research group is one of the best in the area but after discussing the situation we decided not to to take the money. Most of the group (including me) don't really want to do military research. One of the projects most suited to the group would be making some processors for missiles and I definately wouldnt be happy about that.
There is the case that we could do a pure research project for them. No direct link with weapons but simply making tools to make asynchronous processors but we may be blocked from publishing research and still (more indirectly) killing people.
I never though that in computers you would have to think so hard about what money and projects to accept but this is one I would skip. Its obveous that DARPA want some long range seeking technology but they want good engineers (ones who wouldnt work for them directly) to do their work and warm them over in the pretence that its a fun game. I can't think of many engineers who wouldn't want to have a go at this challenge.
Mouse powered Chips, Open source Processors and Lego
The robot ideally needs to be able to navigate without fear of being stuck on a 2" pebble 100' from the starting line. Obviously you can't map 250 miles of terrain down to millimeter resolution, but you can design the robot to render such obstacles nonexistant.
One concept is a large inflated sphere with light tread patches on the outside. The power/electronics pack is suspended inside with cables running to various points on the sphere. By adjusting the lengths of the cables, the sphere can shift the center of gravity and roll forward. A 6 to 10 foot sphere would allow most small obstacles to be avoided, then the robot only needs to note current position and the general surrounding topography.
Major difficulties with this concept are high winds (unless they are blowing in the right direction!) and steep uphill gradients.
...
Unless they look in the truck and find our midget team member.
You've probably seen the automated lawnmowers; in my understanding guided by wires under the lawn or perhaps RC controlled..
Forget about the wire, but could some infrared stuff, GPS or whatever pull it off?
3.1 Team Must Be U.S. Entity
The Challenge is open only to US entities. This includes U.S. corporations, U.S. non-profit organizations, U.S. universities, U.S. citizens, sole proprietors that are U.S. citizens or permanent residents, and partnerships of U.S. citizens or permanent residents.
Everyone knows that any finite path can be traversed by an infinite amount of monkeys driving an infinite amount of cars (with infinite gas) over an infinite amount of time.
Massive networking attempt for friends
How about teaching a woman to drive first?
Oh wait, realm of possibility.
If two robots got in an accident on the Canada/Mexico border, where would they bury the survivors?
with accusations of wasting your tax dollars, think of it this way: would you rather pose this challenge to geeks at large or to folks in the employ of DARPA? Doing it the way it's always been done has resulted in tons of wasted $$$.
/.
Personally I have NEVER seen creativity anywhere like I have seen here on
If it can be done, someone on here has probably done it already.
My family has a 160acre ranch and several junked vehicles we use as "go karts"
If anyone in the San Jose Bay area can prove to me you can do the software/servo's and other software, I can at least provide a peice of shit car and a ranch for "beta testing"
Scary to think.... in the time it would take a programmer to make a car go from point A to point B without crashing into who knows what, you could end up earning that $1 million by figuring out ways to make cars safer for real people to drive. Also consider that to create something that monumental would cost said person a pretty penny to get started up. Object perception, maneuvering logic, AI for when to accelerate and stop, and the materials needed to create this auto would cost you around $1 million, the amount that they are awarding to create it in the first place.
Business \Busi"ness\, n.;
A scam in which all people involved perceive as beneficial...
Drive itself across a desert for ten hours then, like, get pizza or something? I think not. What they want is something that will drive itself for ten hours then go fucking BANG! and take out a whole shitload of unsuspecting Iraqi's.
We're just, like, interested to see if it can be done. Here, have a million bucks. Sure, fuck you.
Dave
I write a blog now, you should be afraid.
I'll probably get modded down for this, but that is freakin' hilarious! Why wasn't it marked as Funny?
The rules also state that the route will be navigable/avoidable by a standard 4x4 pickup (HINT HINT).
Having driven out in the desert, even on the dirt roads, most of it can be driven at 60+ mph. You just have to be ready for the parts that can't be driven faster than 5 mph.
Brought to you by: "Al"toids - the curiously weird mint.
I think once they get a car to drive from LA to Vegas, they should put it up against a woman in an SUV with a cell phone and see if she can drive as well as the machine.
Wer mit Ungeheuern kämpft, mag zusehn, dass er nicht dabei zum Ungeheuer wird. --Nietzsche
It seems a lot of slashdot folk here don't read before they post. Some are already talking about avoiding other vehicles on the road. First off, do you really think they would allow a bunch of robotic vehicles to drive along side drivers? Second, it does mention across the desert both off and on road, but does not say anything about public roads where it must avoid other vehicles.
Another thing mentioned was GPS. Someone complained about not being able to use GPS. If that person had done some reading (FAQ on the page) then they would have seen that a public GPS or a private autonomous GPS receiver is allowed.
Now my thoughts on this challenge.
A few things I think are most important here are:
4x4 type of vehicle (truck, SUV, Hummer, Jeep, etc.) (Automatic prefered for ease of use)
A must have GPS receiver.
Infrared obstacle detection device (180 degrees) about 100 meters.
Also, another device to analyze the terrain about 180 degrees around the front of the vehicle out to about 100 meters.
Attach the GPS, obstacle device, and terrain device to a computer and also have the computer hooked up to the acceleration pedal, brake pedal, and shifter to put into park or drive.
The terrain device would be the most complicated. Then all you would need is a few good programmers that can work with the data the different devices provide and your set. I'm not sure if such terrain devices exist outside the military, but I'm sure some laser/infrared/etc. engineers out there could produce a basic one. This project isn't as complicated as it sounds, but it would take some good engineers and programmers to finish. Just my thoughts.
Question everything.
Nice to know that DARPA is now getting into the casino shuttle business.
Check out the ARGO project. These guys drove 2000Km about Italy...
e x. html
http://millemiglia.ce.unipr.it/ARGO/english/ind
According to the article:
Examples of obstacles include ditches, open water, rocks, underpasses, and construction. All obstructions on the route can be either accommodated or avoided by a commercial 4X4 pick-up truck.
Anyone that has gone offroad can attest to how hard it is to go 25mph consistently or on average. Add in to that the fact that you will have to backtrack and figure out alternate routes means your vehicle is going to be thinking fast and driving very fast.
The article mentions part of the route will be on paved roads, so maybe you can make up a lot of time on those stretches.
Definitely not a trivial challenge. but a fun one for sure. Some of the non-trivial ingredients: the offroad vehicle, gps for detecting way points and finish points, camera for detecting obstacles and terrain, algorithm to determine fastest speed for current terrain, feedback to determine whether you are getting close to tip over, algorithm for determining alternate routes.
what else?
1- get a "Bender" costume
2- change pulleys on my lawn tractor
3- ?
4- win race! profit!
*possible step 3, carry 12 gauge, pick off pesky little tinny, whiny blinkenlights competition you see on the way
I don't know if it would be a fourth law or zeroth law for driver robots, but these fuckers better understand proper usage of the passing lane or it's going to be a one hell of a future.
If someone manages to handle this challenge, then we'll be closer to fulfilling the vision of Dismissing humans from truck driving!
- Marco
I can see it now; "Sorry Mr R2-D2 but your GPL doesn't cover for driving in Seattle."
;-)
Or..."I gonna have to ask you to step out of the car Sir"..."Um, I *am* the car"
Sorry, I'll get my coat...
any intended entrants out there want to disclose your secret plans?
*quickly throws robot costume in the closet and shuts the door*
NO! It's a secret! Go away! And geez, don't you know how to knock?
SIGFEH
Just program the route into onboard memory. Calculate for changes in speed, and you're done.
Not white what DARPA wants though, I'm certain.
[insert witty comment here]
Comment removed based on user account deletion
It says it must be a vehicle, but do they say it can't be a flying vehicle? In the air its always a straight line.
Just build a really big and heavy tank which will just squish everything in it's way and go 250 miles in a straight line.
T.
I'm not an accountant, but it'll probably take more than a million dollars to build this thing.
You're just looking at the problem all wrong.
You're not providing the guidance so the missle kills someone, you're providing the guidance so the missle DOESN'T kill all the doctors and patients in the hospital next door to the target.
paintball
Really. This is ancient "news."
Already taken
Yeah sure the US delibretly avoids civiliands and making better missiles might be beter, but unfortunately the US also exports more military equipment than anyone else (I was told). As much as I don't like shrub (W jr) having the ability to kill at distance I would like it even less when these weapons are used by US's more draconian allies.
Mouse powered Chips, Open source Processors and Lego
G'morning all.
:)
:) Radio stations make for decent markers too. Since you have something the size of a truck, it would be a piece of cake to triangulate distance and direction to any one becon, and use any two to fix location.
:)
This sounds like fun.. Personally, I don't have *ALL* the skills required to pull this one off, but if anyone's forming a team in the Los Angeles area, I'm in.. I have skills everywhere from the technical aspects of making a vehicle work to engineering of the hardware involved.
I'm thinking something like a slightly modified S-10 Blazer, or K5 Blazer. Positraction (not available on the older S-10's) is a must. Probably the K5 would be the better choice, for extra room in the engine compartment for controls.
I did a quick read through their forums. There's some interesting (and optimistic) talk of stereo vision through, laser vision/guidance, and ground evaluation through radar.. A few of the people sound like they have a clue, and some others didn't even read the rules..
Some of them are talking about exotic hardware solutions, that they'll probably spend all the available time building, and then wonder why they don't have a working vehicle to go with it. Some others were talking about cool Xeon based systems, and forget that they get hot, and this is going to be running in a vehicle in the desert for 10 hours. One mentioned the hardships of hard drives, and doesn't even realize that you can use Compact Flash as your hard drive, and do stuff from there. No one yet mentioned using Linux..
My thoughs on a practical vehicle is a late 80's Chevy K5 blazer. Radar (like the backup radar in late model Lincoln's) to evaluate for local blockages. Vision system, like a stereo camera hooked up to a Linux box (this is where I'm at a loss. I don't think I could do this software).
Steering control would be an electric motor with chain drive just before the steering box. That way, no major changes to the steering need to be done.
Acceleration is a simple motor pulling on the throttle assembly, just like the vacuume accuator on cruise control.
Braking would need to be something more substantial. probably a pneumatic ram on the brake pedal lever itself.
I'd suspect it'll take a few computers to run it, but in something the size of a K5 blazer, we'd have no only room to mount it, but more than enough room to mount it preventing shocks... The computers would need to be hard-drive free though.. Compact flash cards of say 512Mb would be just about all we'd have to work with. That should be sufficent though.
The site says they're providing several checkpoints which are mandatory to pass through/stop at. There will also be mandatory waypoints, which define the path. Fairly easily, go from waypoint to waypoint. If there's an obstical, decide for left or right turn to go around.. More than likely the easiest thing would be to use GPS to establish a location (when available), and use other public navigation beacons the rest of the time.
Anyone who's flown knows how many radio navigation beacons are available.
When you detect an obstical, mark it on an onboard map, and figure out a way around. That would be for big obsticals like canyons or mountains. Small obsticals, you steer around.
I can design and build anything required to make the vehicle itself work. Navigation will be up to someone else. This is/will be a team project, so as many hands as we can get involved would be cool.
Can we get Cmdr Taco's permission to put "Slashdot" down the side of the truck?
Who's in? Reply here first, then we'll get in contact in real life.
Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
They're going to make you a four-star general.
The story isn't clear, but reading the article reveals that it must be a ground vehicle. Pity; I had a great suggestion: a Tomahawk cruise missile.
Matter of fact, I have a second great suggestion: run the challenge from Vegas to LA.
Moderate drunk! It's more fun that way!
So when exactly is this going to take place? I want to make sure to not be any where near L.A. or Vegas or the route between them when it does happen.
No offence to Italian drivers, but this little project developed an autonomous vehicle using Linux, that could drive on Italian highways. Pretty impressive!
the ARGO project
If you've ever driven in Italy you should be impressed too...
Wouldn't slashdot or Andover.net love to see 'slashdot' on one of the winning entries? Seeing as they're probably to cheap to call up one of the entrants and ask them they're hoping that an entrant will come to it and do it for free.
Let's just say it involes some blinking LED's, a few junk motherboards, 4 Square yards of tinfoil, and kidnapping Jeff Gordon.
There are some people that if they don't know, you can't tell 'em.
delibretly ?
civiliands ?
beter ?
I wouldn't be so quick to denigrate W( who, by the way, is actually "H jr", not "W jr" ), considering your mastery of the English language is about on par with his.
well, you could get directions using a service like avis or something... then they just need to be analyzed and interpretted... question: what happens if the car is perfect and gets stuck in a traffic jam due to an accident... does this count against the perfectly build robot?
I write code.
People have been working on "smart cars" for decades, thowing every technique you mention (and quite a few more) at the problem, and I don't think we're close to having a robot car that could be trusted to drive unsupervised in real traffic...
However, feel free to prove me wrong by winning the contest!
Laszlo Hollyfeld.
Also, I didn't see anything about rights to the technology you develop.. does DARPA get that if you win, or do they have to negotiate seperate contracts with the teams they like?
...if you won the contest and your AI was later put in autonomous tanks that the military used to round us all up into a forced march to the killing fields.
As you were being rounded up you would be faced with the irony of being bitch-slapped by your own AI and Nelson would point and laugh, "ha ha!" as you were being marched to the death camps by the smart tanks.
Setup visual markers every mile, and have your robot have a map in it that plots the course to the next marker. It then uses the markers to keep itself insync with where it thinks it is.
I suppose the obvious solution would be to find a relitivly straight road between the two points and build a small, gas powered vehicle to follow the line on the insideside of the road,between highways. Assuming no cars are pulled over, you're good... Of course getting off the highway is a slight problem... but what fun would it be without a challange?
Since when has this country used intellectual elite as a pejorative term?
And I think I have a decent chance of taking home the prize.
I haven't read the rules, but are hunter-killer pairs allowed? In other words, deploy your truck, but have a set of smaller (disposable) scout vehicles move ahead and transmit telemetry back to the main vehicle.
Load your truck with about 20 scouts, and have them deployed on a half hour basis in sets of 3 about 10-20 miles ahead in order to map terrain and establish an optimal path for straight line, maximum speed movement. Scouts that fail to make it back before the truck guns it are considered casualties... And mind you, you don't need to use ground scouts - aerial scouts (helo with refuling boom) with ground mapping radar/camera would work as well.
No subvehicles will be allowed.
Damn!
another article
t ow eek&cat_code=carnews&loc_code=index&content_code=0 8584167
http://autoweek.com/cat_content.mv?port_code=au
I wonder if a GPS would be a conceivable solution? Maybe you could drive the course yourself and map the course out with gps coordinates then use your calculations to program the vehicle to follow the same route you took. Would probably cost more than a mil to do this effectively, though. just a thought...
42
Q14. As a foreign national or foreign organization, what can I do?
A14. You can work on a US organization's entry. Any award money will be paid to the US organization.
... it must be the touring test.
Infuriate left and right
Prize awards have an excellent track record of facilitating major technical innovation(i.e. plastics, longitude).
I noticed that some of the posters here were disturbed that this was a military funded prize. I would argue that robotics could have an enormously positive effect on the security of the United States in various indirect manners other than weapons production--it is thus a very appropriate concern for those concerned with the security of the United States.
I would like to see a wider range of contests/prizes here. In particular, I think that some prizes that would focus on rules that would be more appropriate for smaller, less well-funded teams would be a good idea here.
I have on good authority that the Jet Propulsion Laboratory has a huge lead over most competition. They already have autonomous vehicles that can travel at ~15 mph over very rough terrain. Keep your eyes out for the Caltech/JPL team to make some real waves.
Elwood Blues: It's 106 miles to Chicago, we've got a full tank of gas, half a pack of cigarettes, it's dark and we're wearing sunglasses.
Jake Blues: Hit it!
So we should get rid of our long range fighting capabilities?
This is like saying "We should destroy our nuclear (newquelar) capabilities to promote world peace!". The whole point of having this kind of tech is so that even if enemies do get them, we can fight on their level, or (even better) above it.
That is why we must keep developing weapons. Just because we stop doesn't mean everybody else will. If you outlaw guns, only outlaws will have guns.
You can't even spell, so I don't think you're in the least bit qualified to make decisions affecting my personal safety and that of my friends and family. Thank GOD you aren't.
Ron Paul 2012
I don't seen what the problem is. The Foundation for Law and Government did this in the 80s. I think they called it the Knight Industries Two Thousand. The prototype was known as the Knight Industries Roving Robot. I think that is the only good thing that came out of the 80s.
It's a given that missle technology is going to more forward over time.
That said, are you sure you'd rather it be some other country's missles that get better sooner? Taking this decision a step further, would you rather that some other country get firepower superior to that of your own?
Build stuff. Stuff that walks, stuff that rolls, whatever.
...JohnnyCab!!!
Seriously though, A live or static mapping system would need top be included (I suspect they might allow satellite data) to allow mapping out of an optimal amout of open runs to make up time lost in navigating obstacles.
A fun thought project for an R/C airplane buff like myself (even if it is ground based)!
You can't even spell, so I don't think you're in the least bit qualified to make decisions affecting my personal safety and that of my friends and family. Thank GOD you aren't.
:)
so u prefer to rely on someone who pronounce nuclear nukular?
I'll work on this project, as long as I'm given proper rewards if we win. Anyone wanna make a website? I already have the ability to link webcams up to a 3d engine..
Basically all we'd have to do is walk down the course, chart the shit, and do image recognition on the stuff we wanna dodge. Someone wanna make a 40 mph tank, and someone know how to take 5 volt and use it as an on/off switch, and we're good to go.
James_Sager_PA@yahoo.com I'll help.
God spoke to me
(feel free to send $$$ if you use this) Drive the intended "course" whilst carefully programming the path you take. (using GPS?) Program your robot car to follow the pre-determined path, voila! Of course this is not in the spirit of the competition, but the chances are that your vehicle would make it to the end in the required time is very good IMHO! LOL Just don't use a female robot... for sure the robot vehicle would end up at the nearest mall! (DUCK!)
We should teach humans to drive properly, before having those idiots teach something that can't think
-------
Support Indy Music. Buy
A group called Scarab Robotics in Carnation, WA, (near Seattle) is building an entry. Sounds like they're open to volunteers.
Steve.
Alternatively, I-5 to CA-14 to CA-58 to I-15. Same protocol.
Now just how you do this is left as an exercise to the reader. Good luck.
This sig no verb.
Give the guys on Monster Garage a few programmers and a week, I'm sure they can do it!
Actually, I think those authors acusing DARPA of trying to create a military weapon are wrong. I mean, if you want to develop a self-guided weapon systems, the US Military already has them in spades, and they get to their target at speeds far higher than 25 mph. And what is this supposed armor going to do when it gets there? You still need infantry to mop up. Sure in the long, long run this might have killing military apps, but to me it sounds the worst social impact it might have is unemployment in the logistics corp?
I might be much more suspicious if the thing had to avoid driving up over the crests of ridges or advancing in formation with the other cars!
Winton
A Gps and 10000 waypoints.
"It's so convenient to have a system where everyone is a criminal" - A. Hitler
How 'out of the box' can we get? If you had a vehicle that fired projectiles ahead to get 'soundings' then basically did 120MPH along any straightaways found, is that legit?
It's certainly not tidy.
Or a vehicle that just deploys a bunch of small r/c vehicles ahead, figuring 90% will get stuck or destroyed but the 1 or 2 that make it through have essentially provided it with a map.
Just how weird can one get?
A.
Dont forget that you will also have to create a navigation mechanism, so it actually end up in Las Vegas and not Seattle.
A company named Mobileye seems to have a solution already. Well, a partial solution, perhaps. They have a car that nearly drives itself, and can recongnize obstacles, such as pedestrians, motorcycles, etc. As I understand, their car already has a mode where it will automatically follow the vehicle in front, without user intervention.
>|<*:=
Slashdot's first reaction to VMware
Didn't Carnegie Mellon's robot car already do a lap of america except for on/off ramps? I know it used to tool around Pittsburgh...
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
1) We can't even teach women to drive so why should we be trying to teach a robot to drive?
and
2) Finally! A way to eliminate female drivers!
That is why we must keep developing weapons. Just because we stop doesn't mean everybody else will. If you outlaw guns, only outlaws will have guns.
No. The answer is to convince your enemies that it would be the best for all parties to disarm. Else you get into an arms races, where more and more powerful weapons are created. So when something does happen, everyone will be fucked beyond belief. And believe me, it will happen. It always does unless you trying to cooperate with your enemies and make them your friends instead.
I'd love to work on something like this, but I don't have the money so all I can do is "armchair quarterback" it. Assuming money was no object, and I had access to all the fun toys that are currently available....
- Vision: synthetic aperature radar. This would be the ideal way to detect potholes, judge distance and height, etc. Very expensive stuff, unfortunately. Also include forward-looking color camera to read signs etc.
- Processing: one poster suggested "divide and conquer", which would probably be the best approach. Feed the world data from the radar/camera into multiple systems, each for dealing with a different problem. Here's what you'd have to be able to deal with:
1. identifying road positions. Not too hard to do, just look for the center line and shoulder.
2. identify unpaved road paths. (gravel and dirt) More complicated.
3. Identify road hazards.
4. Process road signs. (speed limit in particular)
5. Navigation during maneuvers. (merging, turning, changing road types, stopping, pulling over and pulling out)
6. several smaller algorythms to detect uncommon but possible conditions, such as encountering a slow moving vehicle, cattle on the road, being passed by another vehicle, identification of blocked roads (construction, bridge out, detour) and so forth. Each of these would have to be handled as an interrupting action.
A GPS will no doubt be essential to any design.
A fully loaded map system would have to be in the mix as well. Think MapQuest or something like that. It would need the ability to plot a sensible course from any two given points.
Navigation would combine all of these elements. Use of the GPS and the road detectors would keep the "bot" on course. Road hazard system would interrupt to deal with dynamic situations and general vehicle safety. In the event of a road hazard, it would probably be smartest to simply mark that bit of the road as "no longer there" and calculate a new route. Better to turn around and detour to go around a tumbleweed in the road than to try to run it over.
Speed determination would require some thought. Road conditions, weather, terrain roughness, speed limit, would all have to be factored in.
Dealing with various traffic controls would be necessary. Stop signs, speed limit changes, etc would be not challenge too much.
Uncontrolled intersections would be a pain, and might require the radar/camera to be able to swivel around to "look both ways before crossing" etc.
Off-road conditions would be especially difficult. Obstacles would be difficult to quantify. (just how much do we need to slow down for that pothole?) This is why the radar would be so important... stereo vision is too easily confused by shadows and other factors, and if you're trucking along at 40mph you have to know if that's a shadow or a hole or a small boulder.
It would probably be a good idea to have some reasonable additions made for general vehicle monitoring. Gas, temp, oil pressure, interior temp, spedometer, tach all would need to provide feedback to the system. It would be a good idea to have a way to detect a flat tire, but I can't think offhand of a good way to do that, especially considering the possibility of needing to cross rough terrain.
Hopefully they would allow some reasonable safety controls. I'd like to see a live camera feed to monitor progress, and a set of like three kill buttons that can transmit emergency overrides in the event of malfunction. One to trigger an orderly "pull over and stop", one to do an emergency stop (hard brake and kill engine) and one to "kill engine and immediately shut down".
Lastly, an "overseer" would be a very wise thing to include. A small computer running on independent power with interrupt control over the steering, throttle, brake, and ignition. It's only job would be to monitor the navigation system for faults. If navigation goes out, the overseer would quickly but safely stop the vehicle, and attempt to restart the navigation. (reboot) If this fails, it would stop the ignition and trigger a distress beacon.
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
Yes, but the small problem with this is that once you've got weapons that can selectively kill anyone you want with no misses;
:)
What's to stop you using them?
Morals?
Over long range, if you want to be able to hit a waypoint with any sort of accuracy, the easist way is to use GPS. Dead Reckoning requires updates based on landmarks, and a decent odomiter and compass as well. The alternative is to use an inertial system, a good one is pretty expensive. Both of the above also depend on knowing your starting position accuratly. Incremintal error *will* add up. There is a reason that the DoD created GPS.
I'm working on a robot navigation system for my Senior Design Project ( http://www.pitt.edu/~mmdst23 has the old details, I plan on fixing that, and adding some source to our Sourceforge site soon, but only after we get things working properly.)
We're using DR, but thats because it's better in an indoor enviroment, with the low cost of a Differential GPS receiver, there arn't many reasons to NOT use one, unless you're really paranoid about GPS jamming/spoofing (which is why the military GPS has an encrypted correction signal as well). That said, a backup DR system does appear to be needed, and using a compass is important anyway, GPS can give your corse over ground, which is where you're going, but it cant give your heading, which is where you're pointed at.
I always prefer to start the year off with a bang - or, to be more precise, a series of loud hums, a crackle or two, and
As it's seemingly not possible to simply bomb any one we don't like into oblivion from the air, is this mayhap the military's approach to "safe ground annihilation" (safe relates to the party launching the AI controlled jeeps with machine gun and rocket mountings)?
$1 million.. Hmm.. What does a single Tomahawk cost? A bit cheep aren't they?
If a Field Judge is unable to continue in the Safety Vehicle, and that inability is of a temporary nature expected to take less than ten minutes to resolve, the Field Judge shall instruct the Safety Vehicle driver to stop, and shall record the time of stopping so that the time stopped may be subtracted from the elapsed time for the team.
Perhaps that should read:
If a Field Judge needs to take a leak, then teams must stop when asked. Team members, on the other hand, are expected to be able to control their bladders.
I am artificially intelligent.
I'm from Florida, and if you don't like my driving, you should stay off the beach.
-
You can't game your way around the rules. You have to describe your approach to DARPA in writing, and DARPA reserves the right to change the rules after entrants have submitted their technical specs.
They want a useful autonomous vehicle, not a trick.
-
The rules have changed several times, and will change again. There's supposed to be a more or less final version on 1 April 2003. Right now, the announced plan is Barstow to Las Vegas in 10 hours.
-
You can't preplan the whole run using map data, aerial imagery and GPS. DARPA will do things to make that not work, like placing some obstacles on the route. Note that you get the route, in the form of about 1000 waypoints, two hours before the race.
-
DARPA does not guarantee that the course will be cleared of other persons and vehicles. Early versions of the rules said that the course would be cleared, but then DARPA changed the rules. Now it's only a "best effort" thing. Some competitors pulled out at that point. There will be sweeps ahead of the robot vehicles, vehicles following behind with remote emergency stop buttons, and road closures, but somebody still might not get the word.
The route isn't on military bases; it's on Bureau of Land Management land open to the public.
DARPA claims they will come up with an insurance carrier that will provide liability coverage, but so far, that hasn't happened. Vehicles thus need very good safety systems.
It's a nice engineering challenge. All of us have solved tough problems in the past, and we've all done serious robotics work. This looks within reach, although difficult.what kind of animals can we train to drive for under $1,000,000?
Chimps?
Dolphins?
My secret plans include:
Replica Sherman Tank.
A bunch of X10 cameras.
Chandelier Headlamps.
"Born To Be Wild" by Steppenwolf.
Case strip lights from ThinkLemming.
Nintendo Power Glove.
A Kompressor.
Dreamcast Linux.
The Dreamcast-Playing Turk.
DARPA could make this entire venture revenue neutral (or even generate a profit) by selling coverage of the contest to Discovery Networks. Of course, details of how the winning entry works will have to be, ahem, obscured...
1) Rent Herbie the Love Bug and throw in a few VIA Motherboards to make it look authentic
2) ???
3) Profit!
The US have over 10,000 nuclear warheads. I think about 7,000 are in serivce, the other's could probably be put in service. Other contries like Russia, China, and France also have large amounts. Don't you think this is just a wee bit silly?
For German carmakers this is already state-of-the-art in terms of prototype cars. For example the is development at DaimlerCrysler with a self driving car. During my practical back in 1996 this car was already able to drive by its own (first test on an unused airport lane). Currently they are so far that this car is able to detect unexpected behaviour an to react accordingly, e.g. playing kids that runs on the street.
Another development is at Volkswagen they have already a self-driving car that runs on their test course. This used for automatic testing as far as I know. This car was quite new about two years ago.
But for any of these cars they have to run on a road, because besides the positioning they need the marking of the roads.
TS
ALVINN - Autonomous Vehicle Navigation using Neural Nets (CMU)
ALVINN uses neural networks to learn visual servoing. It watches a person drive for five minutes, and can then take over driving. ALVINN has been trained to drive on dirt paths, single-lane country roads, city streets, and multi-lane highways. Click here for images of the vehicles and videos of ALVINN in action. The sucessor to ALVINN, called RALPH, was the core of a system that drove a vehicle autonomously all but 52 of the 2,849 miles from Pittsburgh to San Diego, averaging 63 miles per hour, day and night, rain or shine.
Now if only we could make missiles that don't explode at all, we could completely elimenate collateral damage, oh wait...
Seems to me like history proves that there will ALWAYS be conflict, ALWAYS be somebody willing to upset the apple cart, ALWAYS be somebody who will not, for whatever reason, cooperate.
What do we do about them? Ask France to take them out?
For the record, I don't believe that the US should be the unilateral policeman of Earth, but there definitely should be some organization (an armed organization!) that can and will enforce rule of international law.
I used to think that might be the UN.
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
Why is it that this hasn't been accomplished already, exactly? I don't imagine anything difficult about the drive-by-wire system, and I can see difficulty with an automated way for the car to detect roads properly (I live in Minnesota, and we even have trouble knowing where the road is sometimes...), but what's to prevent someone from using an off-the-shelf GPS reciever to pre-map the whole route, throw in a few proximity sensors (ultrasonic? radar?) to detect other cars, a ccd or photo-sensitive somethingorother that detects stoplight-green (preprogrammed in conguction with preplanned GPS route to count lights in their positions so it wont go on a left-turn signal) etc. All this stuff is off the shelf, and I'm sure people with experience with robotics etc. should be able to come up with better ideas. This seems like something that should have been easy a decade ago, so where do the difficulties lie?
What the heck is a 'sig'?
The Microsoft entry will use magnets to steal the navigation chips from the Apple entry and tap into them, squirt mud on Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson's entry, race close to the finish line, and then crap out with 30 yards to go with its winshield flashing a BSOD error.
Table-ized A.I.
I plan to build a 250-mile-long car.
ROFLMAO! You must be a lawyer, not an engineer.
Table-ized A.I.
After it gets to Vegas, surely we need to give it AI to play blackjack and then get shitface drunk. Otherwise, it would be a wasted trip.
BTW, is Vegas gonna take odds for this race?
Table-ized A.I.
I attended the kick-off meeting at the Peterson Automotive Museum, and most of the posts are as far off base as LA is from Vegas. The race will start from outside Barstow and end near Los Vegas, and be between 225 and 250 miles. Two hours before the race start, the teams will be given a set of approximately 1000 'waypoints' defined by latitude and longitude. During the race the vehicle must pass no farther then a fixed distance from all the waypoints. Each vehicle as a mandatory stop of a few minutes at one of the waypoints. Different vehicles have different stops. If a vehicle has to refuel it must do so at it's stop point and no human intervention is allowed. The waypoints will NOT define the race path. There will be sequential waypoints that require tracking a road that is not a straight line between the points. Some of the race will be on paved roads, some on dirt roads and some off road. Some of the course will be in areas where GPS does not work. An off road organization called SCORE is helping plan the race. Each vehicle has a chase car with a team member and a DARPA representative to judge if the vehicle is in compliance with the rules. Each vehicle must have a remote kill switch. If your vehicle stops moving for more then a set amount if time it can be declared out of the race. You can't just show up. Your team has to submit a paper about the vehicle a few months before the actual race. The day before the race starts, each team must run a simple test course that will be set up somewhere in LA. If you can't pass the simple test you don't get to run. DARPA is currently working on all the permits and legal issues for the race. They have to deal with the state, Forest service and Bureau of Land Management. Public roads will be closed, so non-race traffic should not be a problem. A big problem for the teams is legal liability. It is illegal to have a car without a diver in California, so how do you get team insurance? What happens if you hit a structure during the race? Where do you go to test? DARPA has permits for the race, but what about getting ready? This could be a bigger problem the finishing the race. I still have not joined a team, because I have not found a group I think has a good plan for the software. I doubt that anyone will win the first time out.
I'd say they'd be better off employing some folks that CAN drive a vehicle ... but then again there maybe none to be found ...
**Speaking into calculator watch** "Way to go good buddy, that will leave us plenty of time to collect the million dollars, and expose the corruption over at DARPA. The boys at the Foundation will be happy."
You guys are no fun lets all have at least one nice big war before bedtime.
in my life God comes first.... but Linux is pretty high after that
Francis Smit
To do all of this at 25MPH, is definitely not easy. A human driver has to slow down when crossing rough country. Certainly 30MPH over rough tracks is a high speed for a person let alone an autonomous vehicle.
The main constraint on driving in Italy is the ability to sound the horn and give the finger. I hope their technology can cope with these required signals.
It is interesting to see the DoD defining "unmanned" in this way.
I was reading the rules, and finally found just the loophole needed to win! The rules state
Participants while on the Route shall render all possible assistance to any another Participant on the same or other Team who has been injured and requires medical attention. Failure to do so shall be disqualifying.
Obviously, the solution is to go around to all the other teams, claiming to be stung in the fanny by a scorpion. When they refuse to suck out the poision, have them disqualified. (You have less than 6 hours to do this). Now, you might *actually* have to get stung in the fanny by a scorpion to make this work, but I'd take that risk for a cool million bucks!
Al Quaida holds a contest for self flying airplanes....
http://www.tanksforsale.co.uk/
1. Buy a cheap tank from former Soviet black market.
2. Equip it with GPS.
3. Tell it to run in straight line from start to finish.
4. Cross your fingers.
5. Profit?
The heavier the vehicle is the more kinetic energy it has so the more problems you have negotiating obstacles. Furthermore, the heavier it is the more likelihood that it will damage itself in collisions or rollovers. Also, the heavier the vehicle is, the more energy it will consume, so the more fuel it needs to carry, so the heavier it is...
The solution to this problem, from a chasis point of view, is to build the lightest machine possible consistent with carrying a laptop computer, two video cameras and a small radar. If I were building it I'd aim for a lightweight carbon-fibre moncoque shell with a generally curved shape; large, lightweight wheels like mountain bike wheels; a small air-cooled four-stroke engine - say 100 to 250cc; a cone type continuously variable transmission; and a robot wars style self righting mechanism. I'd aim for at least 100 miles per gallon on-road fuel economy and carry four gallons of fuel in an underslung fuel tank for a fully fueled up weight of under 150 pounds.
Structurally the key thing would be to protect the cameras and the radar. Not only do you not want them to be damaged, you don't want their mounts to get bent even the slightest bit out of alignment.
On the road sections of the course you'd use stereoscopic vision to establish road position as with the Italian ARGO project mentioned earlier, possibly with the object detection assisted with radar. You'd go as fast as you possibly could on road sections to build up average speed.
Off road you'd use primarily radar to assess forward obstacles. The strategy would be to steer a near direct course deviating around small obstacles. If a large obstacle was encountered, you'd backtrack 100 yards, turn 30 degrees one way, and go forward; if that didn't work you'd recursively back up more, turn the other way, and try, until you had passed the obstruction, at which point you'd plot a new direct course and carry on.
But the key things, it seems to me, are keep it small, keep it light, keep it simple.
I'm old enough to remember when discussions on Slashdot were well informed.
FAQ: A4. The route will be similar to a desert off-road race. For example, it will be possible for a skilled driver in a commercial four-wheel drive vehicle to traverse the route, although not necessarily at the speeds necessary to qualify for the award.
Not neccessarily at the speeds necessary to qualify for the award? So you need to design a vehicle, possibly, that can go FASTER than a commercial 4x4?
On the "making up speed on normal roads":-
FAQ A2. The exact route has not been determined, but the off-road portion will be approximately 250 miles.
That's right, the OFF ROAD portion is 250mi.
Conversion Rate Optimisation French / English consultant
Enter the contest. If you win, decline your prize money and refuse to disclose your design. You'll get the satisfaction of being the best, you'll get PLENTY of publicity, and you'll really piss off DARPA. Now wouldn't that be fun?
"...Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!"
:) http://us.imdb.com/Title?0082136
how about the first world war? all it took to unleash hell over europe was the assasination of franz ferdinand, the heir to the Austro-Hungarian empire.
Bottom line is, if you keep making more and better weapons all you need is an excuse to go and use them to your purposes. Or do you think alsacia-lorena was invaded to protect the world from terrorists such as prinzip? (the guy who shot ferdinand). I bet you believe theres nothing more to the invasion of iraq than the war on terrorism.
and whats he got lined up in Vegas? ahh doesn't sound too hard.. i'll whip something up in PHP. :)
Why assume the autonomous autobot will be navigating a road? It's a "course", whatever that refers to... I think the bigger problem is the time frame - autonomous control of ANYTHING has not sufficiently advanced enough to meet the criteria of this contest. I think a good design, which has the autobot actually solving problems about "best route to destination" (which could largely be accomplished with graph theory) won't get the recognition because it will be taking the long way around. As opposed to the brute force method which will get there the fastest. Besides, who wants to see an entry win that's going to wimp its way around some trees, when the alternative is rotating saw blades fixed to the front and turbo boosters...
And I'll be there hiding in the desert waiting to steal a robot or two.
eTrade SUCKS
Forget studying physics; we studied the rules.
This also led to the toothpick bridge that was constructed by gluing the whole back of toothpicks together. Since mass was in grams, and length was in centimeters, the straight multiplication for score was heavily weighted towards mass. 150 kg later, those sissy meter-long bridges didn't stand a chance.
Give life
"Well, I'm as much agin' killin' as ever, sir. But, it was this way, Colonel. When I started out, I felt just like you said. But, when I hear them machine guns a-goin' and all them fellers are droppin' around me, I figured that them guns was killin' hundreds, maybe thousands. There weren't nothin' anybody could do but to stop them guns. And, that's what I done."
It is right and proper that we have strong moral objections to killing. It is also important that we choose the most moral choice from those available to us. Reasonably, the alternative to this project is placing a human in harm's way.
If your bitterest enemies are people who hack the heads off civilians, then I would say you're doing something right.
From the "Better Off Dead" School of Programming:
function Drive();
{
go.reallyfast;
if something.inyourway {
turn;
}
}
blog |
'navigate on its own over a 250-mile desert course in less than 10 hours.'
a cruise missile does that easily.
'without external communication or human control.'
Get a chimp to use joystick which controls a dot (representing the vehicle) on a screen. When it gets the dot to the, say sexy chimp or gorilla, at the other side of the screen it gets some reward. Dolphins, maze mice or any other animal would probably work as well.
Or get huskie dogs to tow the vehicle towards a "home" across the desert.
I believe the U.S. military budget would be better spent on me.
Of course the real goal for this contest could be the design of vehicle for use on another planet. But then, why not land directly where you want to go?
http://www.cognitoy.com/
mindrover
AI vehicles where you program the AI with a drop in graphic interface usable by an 8 year old.
A couple of (thousand) slashtards that have the social life of a robot, maybe we could enter them.
between the greater and lesser infinities sleep the dreams undreamt
Ever hear of the Prisoner's Dilemma? Played out in large-scale by North Korea.
It's even better to allow your enemy to be convinced you're disarming, and then secretly NOT disarm.
The solution to the disarmament problem boils down to two extremes.
Either you send troops into every country in the world, into every household basement to search for someone illicitly developing weapons -
Or, you simply allow proliferation to happen, knowing it's going to happen no matter what you do, and stay ahead of the competition.
Neither have a very pleasant outcome.
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
China does not have such large numbers. A few dozen at the most.
Russia has several thousand, but no means to realistically field them.
And France. . .
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
"For the record, I don't believe that the US should be the unilateral policeman of Earth, but there definitely should be some organization (an armed organization!) that can and will enforce rule of international law."
Many Americans believe that America can and should be the unilateral policemen of the Earth. And I guess that's fine, as long as we're "the good guys".
But in case you haven't been keeping up with current events, this policeman no longer cares for international law. It's now Rule of Force.
The problem with that is when there's a power shift, and the folks controlling that force are no longer the good guys.
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
To my way of thinking, the UN is derelict in its duty to protect the people of Iraq (and North Korea and a dozen other tin-pot dictatorships around the world) from their tyrannical governments.
I don't believe that the US should be the one whose army is (invariably) the backbone of any UN "peacekeeping initiative".
Who are the good guys? I tell you what, even with everything that's going awry in this country today, the USA is a heck of a lot closer to being "good guys" than, say, France.
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
This page has a few stats. It's not the origonal one I saw. The origonal one has said Russia had less total nulcear weapons that the US. Then again the might have been weapons that could be used.
Found another here
This is most likely a troll. But the sad thing is that there are people in the US .gov/.mil who actually think like this. Hell. If it wasn't for Kennedy...
I suggest we train up a monkey real good. CowboyNeal should do...
....I mean the rules are so hardcore. It seems a lot harder than most of people throwing out post have even thought about. Seems like some serious $hit dealing more with precision than anything else. You will have to fork out the money for good parts. I wouldnt go cheap on anything if you intended on winning. 250 miles and only 1 possible spot to fix/fuel your vehicle (where anything you might need to do so, has to be at that checkpoint before the race). There will be an unkown amount of waypoints that have to be hit. Some of the waypoints won't even be marked. the 180 degree cameras or equipment, better all be 360 degrees. You will be riding along beside your Autonomous Ground Vehicle, so it better know how to act with another vehicle operating around it at all times. Nothing can touch the Autonomous Ground Vehicle during the race, or any other teams Autonomous Ground Vehicle.
section 8 in the rules, pretty much sums up the questions about the vehicle.
section 8.4 notes about being able to put the vehicle in neutral from outside. (If your vehicle flips and hits this lever, button, etc.., how will it engage back into gear? You cant touch it, so your f*cked!)
section 8.5.2 "The wireless E-Stop capability must be implemented in a way that ensures that the Challenge Vehicle will stop when it is not visible from the Safety Vehicle for greater than three seconds." (better make sure your safety vehicle can keep up)
section 8.6 The 12-14VDC, 10A.... (why???)
section 12.3 notes that there will be speed limits in certain areas of the course. WTF?! I only have 6 hours to make a Million and I have to go slow in certain areas. BS!
This should be called mission impossible!
I agree on the CK5 Blazer. They have a lot of room inside the vehicle and its engine bay. They have nice clearance. They aren't that hard to find, and not nearly expensive as a Hummer. If I used a Hummer, It would have to be an army issue Hummer. LOL don't even think about using a Hummer2 for this challenge! You will be ablt to find more parts and modifications for this type of vehicle. They have been around for years. Hummers have been around for a while also, but working on the Blazer would be a whole lot easier. Sorry for ranting, but there are a ton of factors that make this a real challenge and most of the rules seem so debateable!
When all else fails, piss on it. At least you will feel better in some kind of way.
Okay, so you build your AI robot and it's cruising along at a bouncey 60+Mph. What happens if it starts going crazy and your e-stop command doesn't work?
I'm thinking of a phrase from Futurama:
Bender(sleep-talking): Mmm.... Kill all humans.... hey baby, wanna go and kill all humans...?
Heh.. okay, funny, but maybe not that funny. ^_^;
Still, such a vehicle would be great. Why just think of the uses:
But... wait... what if you put targetting systems on it? Why.. you'd have fast moving kill machines...
Yes, technology can be great... and maybe Bender wasn't so far off after all... Let's just kill all humans...
Winged Power Photography
Does the contest specify if this has to be a land vehicle or can it be an air vehicle?
Wrong. Russia wanted an agreement to stop making nukes (probably because of their economy, and because it was getting out of hand). But the US said no. Which basicly forced Russia to keep on making them, destroying their economy in the process.
But the greatest Electrical Pioneer of them all was Thomas Edison, who was a
brilliant inventor despite the fact that he had little formal education and
lived in New Jersey. Edison's first major invention in 1877, was the
phonograph, which could soon be found in thousands of American homes, where
it basically sat until 1923, when the record was invented. But Edison's
greatest achievement came in 1879, when he invented the electric company.
Edison's design was a brilliant adaptation of the simple electrical circuit:
the electric company sends electricity through a wire to a customer, then
immediately gets the electricity back through another wire, then (this is
the brilliant part) sends it right back to the customer again.
This means that an electric company can sell a customer the same batch of
electricity thousands of times a day and never get caught, since very few
customers take the time to examine their electricity closely. In fact the
last year any new electricity was generated in the United States was 1937;
the electric companies have been merely re-selling it ever since, which is
why they have so much free time to apply for rate increases.
-- Dave Barry, "What is Electricity?"
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