9th Annual AUV Competition Results

Sean.D.Matthews writes "This weekend the 9th Annual Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV) Competition was held in San Diego. This year, teams were challenged to complete three tasks including finding a docking station, dropping markers in marked bins along a pipeline, and surfacing in a recovery zone marked by an acoustic pinger. Teams from MIT, Cornell, Duke and eighteen others competed for the grand prize. After an intense final round, the University of Florida's Team SubjuGator walked away with the victory for a second year in a row. Interestingly, the UF team ran Windows XP embedded on SubjuGator's on-board computer."

Comments

My high school's in it

[i.of.the.storm]

We're the only high school to compete in it. Last year we placed 5th but this year we did like no work during the school year and I wasnt here during most of the summer so I have no idea what happened. Our best ranking was 2nd. Apparently this year we're 15th. Look for Amador Valley High School on this page: http://www.auvsi.org/competitions/06standings.cfm

Re:My high school's in it

[i.of.the.storm]

Oh and also, until this year we were using Linux on some sort of Pentium III stack computer thingy, this year we got the OQO handheld PC thingy since our old sub was totaled and the cost of old parts was too high. It was the easiest way to get USB in our sub and it's self-contained, but expensive. Our code was in Java, but it used to be C++. I think our site got hacked though, and I don't know who runs it and it hasn't been updated in a long time.

Re:My high school's in it

[ampmouse]

My High School was going to compete, we were even registered for several months. We had to withdraw in late June due to lack of funding (it's hard to build a AUV with only $900, especially when there is a $500 registration fee). We are going to start looking for money earlier this year. Hopefully we will see you there next year!
(And yes, our software is entirely open source.)

Re:WindowsXP

[schwep]

I agree. I worked on a project like this in college. Any time a person or company would give us money for the project, we were happy. We weren't too pickey about who gave it to us. Congratulations to everyone involved, especially UF.

Re:Interesting?

[fireboy1919]

You seem to be thinking of XP embedded as the normal thing - kind of like using Phillips head screws. I think you're missing it.

Think more of teaching an ape sign language. Apes aren't good at sign language; Windows XP isn't good at being an embedded operating system.

Doing that is an oddity and a marvel. How can you get something so inept to do that?

I went to an unmanned arial vehicle competition a while back. There were about a dozen teams, and none of them ran any Windows products at all on their devices. Most were more worried about solving the actual problems of the craft to bother fiddling with Windows as well.

From the former SPSU captain (10th place)

[Anonymous Coward]

The SPSU team ran a Linux OS last year but traded off for a fully embedded system and compiled code was directly written to the hardware using a custom USB interface. In terms of this competition you really don't need an OS at all. In their/our view it was mostly a very expensive and bulky crutch.

Of course we came in 10th so....

Intellegent comment

[bananaendian]

What I found interesting was the custom carbon fiber body, MIL-STD underwater wiring and connectors and logos on the side like Lockheed Martin and Microsoft. With sponsors and resources like that I wonder where the challenge is? IMHO there should be two different series - an open series like the existing one and one for software only where all teams would use the same platform. And perhaps there should be some limits set on the open series on resources like you would in a Soapbox Derby. That way kids would have to learn use their wits rather than throw money at problems. I guess this explains those military R&D budjets...