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Another DARPA-Sponsored Robotics Competition
dexterpexter writes "While some say that DARPA played unfairly in eliminating Grand Challenge teams they deem unworthy, they, the Department of Defense, and General Motors (among others) sponsor an autonomous robotics competition in which they exercise less control over who competes and who does not. The rules are more lenient and the prizes are less illustrious, but this competition still holds the spirit of 'openness' and rewarding innovation that the Grand Challenge seems to have lost. Of course, you must be from a university to compete, but any university-based vehicle passing the competition-day qualifications gets a fair shot at winning. No pre-competition disqualifications. My team has competed for several years."
Tell me when I can get a robot that will go to work for me.
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http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/01/02/153723 0
Hell they can call those prizes ? I doubut first place $1500 would recoup the cost of batteries...
I didnt read enough, (I rarley do:) but many of these contests are nothing but brain suckers, like the X prise, unless theyve changed it you are basically sighning away your rights to the tech if you win, even that prise $10 mi, is a joke for the tech to CHEAPLY put someone into space, on the public market a cheap easy way would be worth billions.
What does DARPA have to loose, maybe 50k in all the prizes TOTAL ?
I mean competition is good, the best, but I have a feeling the comercialization of these technologies is much more valuable.
The sad part is frustrated people from the original competiton will see this a a boon and join to do nothing more than expose their innovations to someone that has the ability (read GM) to bring it to market.
The only way you can get a decent, fair competition is to let anyone play and put it on TV...
Robot Wars!!!
No seriously, it's open to more than 'just universities' and it's (reasonably) fun to watch. All it needs is a push away from simple remote control vehicles into something more automated (i.e. robotics) and some sponsorship. I know I'd watch more episodes if they let you use projectile, beam and electronic weapons. Sure safety shouldn't be compromised, but there's gotta be a way to let people be just a bit more adventurous than building a wedge shape round an RC car?
I mean, let's be honest - Lego Mindstorms is more robotic than Robot Wars. A proper Robot Wars could eventually yield some useful technology through having fun...
I wonder if anyone's thought about the fact that many of America's most talented, creative young people - and many of its most technologically gifted - aren't in college.
Many see it as a waste of time and money that could be better spent creating a business, or working on their pet project.
Why should this sort of competition be limited only to those who are conventional enough to find a home in the traditional university setting?
This SUNDAY! The DARPA vs. IRRF grudge match! Come on down to the motor park speedway, only this SUNDAY! SUNDAY! SUNDAY!
From DARPA's own statement...
The recent events that have led to the outcry about the fairness of DARPA's management of this contest are truly unfortunate. I'm actually concerned about the viability of this and future Grand Challenges based simply on the number of legitimate complaints that could be brought that may delay the prize award. Yesterday on DARPA's forum a team reported that the "secret" route that was to be announced only two hours before the start of the race had been "leaked" to some teams. If it's legitimate, for teams using a human pre-planning strategy it's a substantial advantage, and thus it's unfair.
When anything in the Grand Challenge is described as unfair, what's really being said is that there may actually be an attempt to defraud the American taxpayer via an unjust award of a million dollars. People go to prison for much less! I think that the organizers did not adequately consider the implications of running a contest such as this, particularly since they (the US Government) is held to a much higher standard of fairness than any private contest organizers.
-sf
I keep wanting to enter my robot into competitions, but it keeps saying that it can't let me do that.
Regards,
Dave
Mother, do you think they'll like this sig?
I mean, what are General Motors getting out of it? I sure as hell aren't gonna see ECM and JDAMs on my Corvette now, am I?
The best way to make robotics produce results is to create a robotics "scene" that doesn't limit itself to people who come from universities. And it should allow innovation to become widespread, instead of giving it to the government so it can be ignored. That said, "Robot Wars" kinda cheapens robotics by turning it into something that resembles the WWF. Not the best way to attract new minds-although it will generate interest.
If my answers frighten you, stop asking scary questions.
is there any reason this is only open to University teams? I am quite certain there are many more intelligent people on this earth that can make genuine efforts at creating robots. Is it because they dont think these people have the collateral to make a serious competition of it?
Cool, it could be called Robot Club!
1st RULE: You do not talk about ROBOT CLUB.
2nd RULE: You DO NOT talk about ROBOT CLUB.
3rd RULE: If a robot says "stop", goes limp or powers down the fight is over.
4th RULE: Only two robots to a fight.
5th RULE: One fight at a time.
6th RULE: No AC power, no remote controls.
7th RULE: Fights will go on as long as they have to.
8th RULE: If this is your first night at FIGHT CLUB, your robot HAS to fight.
Just in case you didn't read it wrong--several years does not equal seven years. Actually, I just graduated with my electrical engineering degree after three and a half years, and if I had chosen my class order a little more carefully, I could have done so in 3.
:)
My university has competed in this competition since its first, which I believe was a little over 10 years ago.
-dexterpexter
*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*
"We are Linux. Resistance is measured in Ohms."
In terms of the actual IGVC events, it's important to note that they are heavily software based. Very little emphasis is placed on mechanical design or aesthetics and for this reason entrants have actually submitted milk crate and plywood based vehicles and other such contraptions that have zero real-world utility.
The meat of the IGVC is in the Autonomous Challenge. It consists of an obstacle course that the robot must navigate without leaving a defined lane or displacing an obstacle. This event has yet to be completed by a robot since it was overhauled a few years ago and made much more difficult with increased complexity and the introduction of a variety of traps.
This post is not intended to put down the IGVC or its competitors. The competition is an excellent way of getting some academic experience in the field of autonomous robotics without the enormous time and dollar committment of something like the DARPA Grand Challenge. At the same time it is important to recognize that there is room for improvement at the IGVC and that other competitions should be encouraged as this field matures.
Rapidly approaching the Zener knee...
Why would I even think about putting work into another project for darpa? What garountee do I have that they won't just screw over the other contenders?
Candy-Coated Knowledge
I offer a $100 reward for the identity (full name and address) of the person responsible for the above posting. If you have such information, please call Team Overbot at (650) 326-3529. Thank you.
John Nagle
Team Overbot
Some friends and I entered the 2nd IGVC and took 2nd place. We used an old electric wheelchair frame, a PC, an old-style camcorder mounted on a tripod clamped down on the base, a big battery, some old Kodak sonars, and a cheapo power inverter to run the PC. Oh, and some homebrew software. You'd be amazed how many teams are still struggling with basic issues right up to competition day. The amount of re-learning is incredible, just about every team has ground-loop issues at some point in development. The cost these days is certainly = the prize if your thrifty (laptop + webcam + some controllable motors). I still stop by when I can, as this competition is always fun to watch.
I am the lead engineer of the team 'R Junk Works'. Our paper was submitted and approved by DARPA for the Grand Challenge. They then put us in the'Partially Acceptable' category just after approval. This was no big deal for us as we had our prototype vehicle already built for testing. Their 'Site Visit' seemed like just another hoop to jump through before entering the race. The only three people on our team have worked at the 'Lockheed Martin Skunk Works', so our little group is the spin offs - or the 'Junk Works'. We are also in Palmdale California. The four site visitors/inspectors arrived at my garage on the 5th of December to inspect our progress. They road around in our test vehicle that had integrated DGPS, INU and Vision systems running under LINUX Fedora Core 1.0 installed in my personal 1998 Toyota Tacoma pickup truck. They let it slip that this was a 'first for them' to be riding around in one of the contestant vehicles. They road around in the desert next to my house here in Palmdale along a pre programmed course that took them down dirt desert roads and washes here in the Mojave Desert - only a few mile away from where they are going to have the actual race. They had other inspectors jump in front of our vehicle and watched how it avoided them by driving around them. They watched with amazement as our vehicle raced along in excess of 35 mph across the rutty desert roads. Almost everything worked perfectly for the demo except our main vision system camera had been damaged the day before and we were using our backup camera that was having intermittent problems, but did not take away from the totality of the demo. It was probably one of the best demos I have ever given in my entire professional life. I could tell, if I could summarize their attitude of the demo, it would be that they were amazed, enthused and eating out of our hands when it was over. They also let it somewhat slip that we were the farthest along that they had seen yet! Well, after the demo, we assumed that it was inevitable that we would be selected for one of the six slots left. No joy ? they called us on December 17th (my birthday) and told us that we were not selected to participate. The reason we gave was that we did not as yet have a race vehicle. This was their own doing, as once our vehicle sponsor got wind that we were not 'Totally Acceptable', they backed out and were waiting for our team to be on the 'Totally Acceptable' list before donating the actual race vehicle. We even supplied statements of sponsorship from that sponsor = they obviously did not read them = OR = perhaps there was another incentive. After talking to a guy called 'Dan' who is the editor of a national magazine and good friend of mine, he also went to the 'Kick Off' for the Grand Challenge that DARPA had in LA last year. He was able to 'Liquor Up' one of the DARPA legal reps, and SHE intimated that the reason they were holding the Grand Challenge was to put the fear of god into their current contractor and show that they could go else ware for technical projects. She also said that it had already achieved this goal and that even if the GC was never to happen, that they would have already achieved this philosophical goal. Anyway, I admit, what I have said is but the ranting of a sour disgruntled looser. But now, you know 'The rest of the story' from my tainted eyes.
I'd hardly call winning 1 million dollars GIVING it to Uncle Same. But that's just me. Cheers.
27 replys, and the one above it is at 480 replys, this has to be the lowest responded to topic ever... *goes back to reading "Green Eggs and Ham"
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(With due apologies to yog, but hey, this time around, the reward is not just karma :-)
More than mere navel gazing.
Yeah -- I remember your machine. We were all pretty happy that someone local managed to do well. I was working on other projects (Rube Goldberg competition at Purdue and SAE Supermileage) so I didn't get involved in any of the IGVC teams, but I do remember watching some of them working on the vehicles.
I worked security for the 3rd contest, and was still pretty surprised by how many entries were failing due to simple problems.
As you stated -- there were a lot of very basic problems with most entries back then. I'd expect a lot less of that now, as most teams would have a previous year's entry to work from.
If you are plannning on entering -- keep it simple, unless you've already got a working vehicle to start from. You'd be surprised how well you can do in the standings if you have a machine which doesn't break.
We followed the "simple, but working" rule for first-time entries into the SAE SuperMileage competition back then, and lately, the FIRST team I've been helping out. In both cases, we were able to perform better than teams that had much higher budgets, better support systems, and many years of competition history to look back upon. I guess it's easy to get complacent if you're working on a historically successful team.
Help find a cure for Gidget.