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Friday Report
August 3, 2007

DARPA has sent out pre-release notification that this coming Thursday they will announce the DARPA Urban Challenge Semi-Finalists, additionally narrowing the field as we get closer to the Nov. 3, 2007 race day so stay tuned for the update. 
  

Bridging the Gap, Powered by Ideas, DARPA 50 years.

While trying to recruit new team members today one person told me that he is not interested in helping my team but that he would fight if the terrorists ever attacked the United States.  Undiplomatically I said that they already did.  He said that the government and the news media were hyping the stories of terrorists and terrorist plots way beyond the risk they actually present.  

I have not been to the crater Flight 63 made, but I have been to see the repair work that has been done at the Pentagon where my uncle used to work and I had been several times.  I have seen the collapse of the World Trade Center so many times on TV that I feel like I have already been there. I lived on Ford Island in the center of Pearl Harbor for several years.  Some of the buildings and grounds still show the scars of that attack, seeing those made it all very real to me.   I talked to some of the people who were involved in making the movie Torra, Torra, Torra and knew the tour guides that recount the attack for the tours they guide around Pearl Harbor every hour.  As sort of the ultimate in audience participation I had the unusual experience of watching the movie Torra, Torra, Torra at the sub base movie theater....which was in the center of the action.  It was eerie to see the base I was watching the movie on blown to bits then open of the movie theater door to leave and see it all back together again.  In the movie a bomb dropped in the very parking spot my submarine was in while I was watching the movie - that makes it very personal.  Close to the exact same number of people were killed in the attack on Pearl Harbor as were killed in the attack on 9/1/01.  Why has the American public responded so differently? 

Back to the person who does not believe that the US is at war.  I suppose he is thinking in terms of WWII invading armies with clearly defined battle lines rather than the world of cloak and dagger or the world of gorilla warfare which more closely represent terrorist operations.  While that conversation did not recruit him to help my DARPA Urban Challenge team, it did solidify my resolve to soldier on even if it means I have to work alone on this project.


An old WWII poster whose message could apply to today's War on Terrorism.

Today I was using a high torque drill with the extra grip folded for storage.  In the half light and shadows it looked a bit like a machine pistol and I was thinking how I and the people working with me are more dangerous to the enemies of the USA with our tools and engineering skills than if we were armed with guns.  Here at AIM we can engineer solutions to DoD problems which can have much larger effect than what I could do with a gun. 

One of the books in the AIM technical library is from the early days of WWII and is about one of its most secret developments - RADAR.  The book is typewritten because with the war going on, typesetters were in short supply.  The book talks about a dream that one of the designers had.  He dreamed he was watching an anti-aircraft battery firing slowly and each shot knocked an airplane out of the sky.  He went on to design and build the fire control computer that would calculate where to aim the anti-aircraft gun so that the moving projectile and the moving airplane would meet.  One shot, one kill. With a pencil, paper, slide rule and careful observation this engineer was more effective at defeating the enemies of the USA than if he had been in one of the gun crews.

No matter what your opinion about the current president or the wars around the world that the USA is involved in, it is a matter of political fact that warfare is one of the tools in the diplomats toolbox.  It is usually used as a threat to gain political advantage but sometimes is actually brought out and used. 

The realities of warfare are that it costs lives and national treasure and that other countries can initiate it regardless of what we might do.  There is not much I can do about the cost in national treasure, but as an automation and control R&D company AIM can do something about the cost in lives.  Here at AIM we have estimated that our work on driverless supply trucks for the US Army can save one Army driver's life a day - that is a number easily remembered - 365 sons, daughters, wives, husbands, brothers, sisters a year.  This thought is what keeps me moving here at AIM even though some of the 89 teams are ahead of us and some of the 89 teams are behind us. 

Posted by Paul Grayson on August 3, 2007 | Comments (0)