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Mac OS X Drives Grand Challenge Entry

Posted by Zonk on from the apples-for-brains dept.

Anonymous Coward writes "Apple technology drives a new fully-autonomous vehicle developed for a major U.S. competition. From the article: 'Team Banzai is one of just 40 teams selected from 118 entrants from around North America to have made it through to the semi-finals of the 2005 DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) Grand Challenge.'"

5 of 152 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Why did they choose Macs? by mrseigen · · Score: 2, Informative

    Judging from the site, they just really seem to like Macs. Either that, or there were a few sitting around after they kitted out the lab that nobody was using, so they did an "intradepartmental relocation" under cover of night.

  2. Re:Wow by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    > what specific Aqua/Cocoa feature was used here?

    OS X isn't just a nice environment for users, it's an awesome environment for many coders. If they're like the many coders who love xcode, then xcode may have been that aqua/cocoa feature used as a big part of the development process, rather an important part of the resulting product.

  3. Very cool, more information.. by Sv-Manowar · · Score: 4, Informative

    There's more information from Team Banzai on 'Dora' the self-driving touareg at their official website, including pictures of the three mini macs & networking hardware that drive the car. Considering some of the other competitors are entering in Hummer H1's, their choice of a relatively sane offroader (VW Touareg) could be very interesting. There are also interesting technical discussions over on the Club Touareg forums.

    --
    Business Voyeur
    1. Re:Very cool, more information.. by Buran · · Score: 2, Informative

      vwvortex.com has more info, too. I heard of this there first.

      I, Touareg, indeed ...

      --
      i am a soviet space shuttle
  4. They exist. by SeaFox · · Score: 3, Informative

    [Must be a marvel of engineering...] ...with only a single pedal for both acceleration and braking...

    There's an amusement park in my area with these.

    They are small cars (look a little like miniture Model-T's, I think they use go cart engies in them). Anyway, there's a course of a half mile or so where the cars run on a rail with limited manuveability (one rail down the middle of track, gliders on the left and right underside edge of the car to keep it from completely leaving the track). The cars only have one pedal. You push down to accelate (not a high range of speed, this is a kiddie ride), and when you take your foot completely off the gas a brake applies.