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Desert Robot Race Update, With Video
An anonymous reader writes "Several teams have moved forward with their bid to run the Barstow-Vegas Desert Robot Race (For those not familiar check out http://www.darpa.mil/grandchallenge ). As of today 55 teams are registered, some of the most interesting are Cal Tech, AI Magic, and the Red Team out of Carnegie Mellon. Also fishing around the Red Team site, there is a pretty nifty video."
Sucks.
Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
One of the huge applications of autonomous vehicles is the removal of landmines. Systems that can scout out, identify, mark, and even remove mines could save the death and maiming of thousands every year.
Our poor earth is littered with millions of land mines left over from past conflicts, and from current ones too.
Don't knock technology like this. It can be used for good too. Even to clean up after the bad.
People with brown skin (particularly small children) are cheaper and more efficient at the disposal of land mines (in volume, especially).
Afghans, Pakistanis, Vietnamese and perhaps now the Iraqis enjoy almost full employment as Disposable Landmine Removal Technicians.
I would prefer it be very difficult to kill people in general. That way, we'd only do it when we really needed to.
If you look at history, anytime one side was able to kill the other without having to really risk themselves, the shitty side of history results -- genocide, oppression, etc. Just because it's your side that happens to have the better guns, tech, germs or whatever doesn't mean it's a Good Thing.
Hell, look at us: We've been way out ahead for, what, 20 years now and already we're invading other nations so our political leaders can distract the masses from economic problems or the fact that they can't stop terrorism (70% of Americans believe Iraq sponsored 9-11, and why not? They're ay-rabs, ain't they?).
Anyhow, I understand that we live in reality and that these things happen. I just don't think that most geeks would want to be a part of it if they really thought it over, which is why I said what I did.
It sucks.
Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
the challenge is high-speed automated navigation.
As a news.com story pointed out, "Calculations and decisions have to be made rapidly, however, and the room for error is huge. A vehicle moving at 45 miles per hour is covering about 60 feet per second ... If the vehicle's computer can't absorb changes in data quickly enough, it could mean a trip into a gully."
Solving a problem, and solving the same problem in an efficient and timely matter are two different things. As any student walking out of a final exam can tell you, time pressure makes everything much more interesting :)
The bold print giveth, and the fine print taketh away
If you look at history, anytime one side was able to kill the other without having to really risk themselves, the shitty side of history results -- genocide, oppression, etc. Just because it's your side that happens to have the better guns, tech, germs or whatever doesn't mean it's a Good Thing.
Don't you mean anytime one side's leaders?
Or, put another way, it's easier to be yelling "Bring it on" when you're half a world away from the battlefield. One of the big changes in modern warfare is that wars aren't between neighbors much anymore. When you were invading someone right next to you, there was always the possibility that if things went sour, they'd follow your retreating forces right back to your capital.
The bold print giveth, and the fine print taketh away
That red Jeep has nothing to do with the Grand Challenge. That's Navlab 11, the Robotics Institute's latest test vehicle. the Robotics Institute, headed by Charles Thorpe, took a look at the Grand Challenge and decided to pass. He told me "If we entered, we'd have to win", and since he's mostly Government-funded, he'd need another source of funding, which he didn't have. Whittaker, who heads a related but separate operation, the Field Robotics Center, decided to do it on his own.
Whittaker issues a constant stream of trival press releases, like Team Equipped with Laptops and Office Equipment. We have considerable respect for the Robotics Institute at CMU, but this is becoming embarassing.
We take Team Caltech seriously, but not Whittaker's operation.
We will give a presentation on September 24, in EE380 at Stanford, on how we're doing it, and will show our vehicle, which isn't vaporware.
John Nagle
Team Overbot
I just don't think that most geeks would want to be a part of it if they really thought it over, which is why I said what I did.
Well yeah, and North Korea is probably using Linux to track which 'anti-revolutionaries' and their families to kill or lock up in concentration camps.
So should we stop coding? That's the world we live in man.
Your hybrid is not saving the environment. Its purpose is to make you feel good about buying something.
I would prefer it be very difficult to kill people in general. That way, we'd only do it when we really needed to.
Everyone prefers not to kill (except the murderous bastards). This is a straw-man position, and politically naive.
If you look at history, anytime one side was able to kill the other without having to really risk themselves, the shitty side of history results -- genocide, oppression, etc. Just because it's your side that happens to have the better guns, tech, germs or whatever doesn't mean it's a Good Thing.
No, if you look at history, shitty things happen all the time. There is evidence to the contrary: when forces are balanced, then only the tension builds, not the solution (eventually the tension breaks with very bad results: UK-DE before WWI, US-JP before WWII, UK-FR 100 years war, GR-Persia...). The only time peace occurs is when overwhelming force exists on one side (the benevolent side).
Hell, look at us: We've been way out ahead for, what, 20 years now and already we're invading other nations so our political leaders can distract the masses from economic problems or the fact that they can't stop terrorism (70% of Americans believe Iraq sponsored 9-11, and why not? They're ay-rabs, ain't they?).
How does political trolling like this get modded up to +5?
Anyhow, I understand that we live in reality and that these things happen. I just don't think that most geeks would want to be a part of it if they really thought it over, which is why I said what I did.
"Most geeks" is a spurious term. If you think they are all left-leaning pinkos, you`re wrong. If you think they`re Edvard Teller madmen, you`re wrong. Geeks are all over the spectrum. I would imagine there are some geeks who lost their brothers/fathers/sisters/mothers in 9-11, and would have no qualms in putting the hurt on some goat-farking terrorist camp via remote control.
davejenkins.com |
It's not a straw-man position. We kill people all the time because it's easy to do. Do you think that George Bush Jr. would have invaded Iraq if there was going to be a 1:1 casualty rate, or even a 1:5 or 1:10? Of course not -- the whole point of the Iraq war was to distract the nation from the fact that we've lost more jobs than under any President since Hoover and, at the same time, make it seem like we were out getting the people responsible for bringing down the WTC, part of the Pentagon and crashing four passenger planes.
The only time peace occurs is when overwhelming force exists on one side (the benevolent side).
You're on crack. Long-term peace never occurs when one group is overwhelmingly stronger than another; you either get horrible oppression, drawn-out guerilla wars or genocides (or, sometimes, all three). History provides literally hundreds of examples of this; I don't see how you can seriously question it.
How does political trolling like this get modded up to +5?
What was the trolling you were referring to? The part about 70% of Americans beliving that Iraq was directly involved with 9-11 or the part about the Iraq war being a wag-the-dog move? Do you really think you can win that arguement in a forum where people are willing to think past flag-waving and chanting "support our troops" (it always strikes me as odd that saying we shouldn't send the troops to get shot at without good reason, or at least thinking it out carefully first, doesn't count as "support")?
"Most geeks" is a spurious term. If you think they are all left-leaning pinkos, you`re wrong. If you think they`re Edvard Teller madmen, you`re wrong. Geeks are all over the spectrum.
There are undoubtibly right-wing war mongering geeks, thus my use of the word "most". It's not hard to see that most geeks, at least those represented here on /., are considerably left of "center".
Further, I'd be willing to bet that if you could go back and poll the inventors of each advance in human history, asking if they'd have liked the fruit of their efforts to be used to inflict suffering on other people or not, you'd come up with a pretty overwhelming "no".
I would imagine there are some geeks who lost their brothers/fathers/sisters/mothers in 9-11, and would have no qualms in putting the hurt on some goat-farking terrorist camp via remote control.
I would imagine that there are some geeks who lost loved ones in 9-11 who would, similar to my original point, prefer that it was harder to kill people so that you'd only do it when you really had to.
Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
From the display board, "It shall be a goal of the Armed Forces...that by 2015, one-third of the operational ground combat vehicles of the Armed Forces are unmanned." -National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2001 (S. 2549, Sec. 217)
That is very scary to me. Who decided we want this? I do not want our military, any military sending ROBOT TANKS into battle.
If anybody can provide any history or background on where this "mission statement" is about, I'd love to know. The development of autonomous, mobile killing machines is extremely distrubing. I also wonder if some of the participants in this challenge are so focused on the million dollars that they don't quite realize what they are building.
I'm reminded of the movie Real Genius, where the huge laser they spend all semester working on turns out to be some black ops superweapon.
Just imagine what an autonomous tank with human targeting capability could do against even a lightly armed population. For example: "You have fifteen seconds to comply."
There is, somehow, a line between war and senseless slaughter. I think unmanned ground combat vehicles cross that line. They need to change the name back to Department of War if they're going to be building stuff like this.
And as cool and engaging as this challenge is, I can't support it.
If the width of a Route segment is insufficient for passing, and the impeding Vehicle is moving, the passing Vehicle must wait until there is sufficient room to pass. No time credit will be given to the following Vehicle(s).
That combined with the fact that they're all started simultaneously means one poorly-operating entrant could potentially hold up ALL other entrants. At the very least, they should do staggered starts (there is a reason ALL off-road rally races use delayed one-up starts). There are other good bits in there, too, like no guarantee of GPS availability, not even at the waypoints.
I understand it's supposed to be a challenge, but if the X-Prize was designed this way, step one would involve a moon landing.
And you didn't even scratch the surface of designing, building, and actually using autonomous servicing equipment. I imagine the teams will just ignore that completely, relying instead on carrying enough fuel to travel 250 miles without servicing.
I hope this thing is televised somewhere. Even though I don't think it'll be possible to finish within the 10-hour time constraint, it would still be interesting to watch the attempts.
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