We performed really well today despite some challenging conditions. We met at the garage at 6 and went out to West Windsor. Andrew and Brendan began running the car on the course we had laid out the day before, while the rest of us continued laying out a second course. We were scheduled to meet the DARPA guys at 7:30, but it turned out they had missed their flight, and were still in Washington DC. They were now going to drive, and would arrive around noon.

This was a nice reprieve, as it gave us several hours to let us run our two courses into the ground. However, as the hours wore on, a threatening cloud cover began to develop and it became clear that it could start pouring any minute. The plan was that we would the required course enough times to convince us we could handle a variety of obstacle orientations, then switch to the optional course and run that loop continuously until the DARPA guys arrived to see a truck with an empty cab driving all over the field and avoiding a series of obstacles. An impressive introduction.

I was riding in the back with Anand, and on something like our fifth lap on the 700 m loop, we both began to feel rain. The reason this was such a big concern was that raindrops the bumblebee’s lenses would show up as phantom “obstacles,” most likely sending us off the course. We continued to run despite this worry, and the car continued to work well—spotty drops that speckled the windshield somehow managed to miss the camera. Gordon ran back to the garage to get the metal sheet we had made to use as a sun visor. The DARPA guys showed up, and while introductions were being made we mounted this shield above the camera, and it appeared to offer decent rain coverage while the car wasn’t moving. Of course, once we started to drive, the drops would be coming in more horizontal, and be harder to block.

The rain picked up a little as we readied for our first scored run, though it remained mercifully spotty. We ran a test run, did it successfully, and took our first actual run. The DARPA guys planted the trash cans, and stood at either end of the 200 m track, ready to watch the truck’s progress. We had Brendan sit in the back with the kill switch, and nobody in the cab. We hit go, and accelerated smoothly, avoiding the first trash can with no wheel slip as we threaded our way through the rain. We headed down the course, came around the second trash can, and cut back too soon after passing it, causing our rear wheel well to nick it, spinning it around but not knocking it over. This would be our only contact with any obstacles all day.

After bringing it back, I discovered that both lenses not only had droplets on them, but were fogged up. We wiped them off, and the image cleared right up. We ran it again, dodged both trash cans, ran it a third time, and again dodged both trash cans.

We then set up for our optional run. In the interest of showing off, we incorporated a few interesting features designed to show our ability to drive a tight course, and miss obstacles in difficult positions. See the attached graphic. One of the judges waited at the starting line, and I drove the other, using one of Kornhauser’ Mercedes as a chase vehicle. We started the car, and it completed the course successfully, navigating through a gate, dodging trash cans placed in fairly sharp turns, and navigating a particularly narrow passage leading to the finish line. See the obstacles on the map, especially the gate which is the first thing we encounter. This came after a modest downhill that speed control managed repeatedly with ease.

All-in-all, it was a strong performance, and really stunning that we were able to execute our routine to produce consistently successful runs, despite the rain. Our computer code didn’t crash once all day. Of course, it’s hard to speculate whether or not this will secure us a bid to the finals, but we accomplished everything we set out to do, and delivered a performance that had one DARPA judge remarking as he left that we “didn’t need any luck.”

We should know within a week, I would imagine.

Well done gentlemen.

Bryan Cattle'07