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National Qualification Event (NQE) Opening Day
October 26, 2007

FREE ADMISSION .
FREE PARKING

The 2007 Urban Challenge is DARPA’s third autonomous robotic ground vehicle competition and the series has created a large community of team members, organizers, alumni, students and enthusiasts who have followed the events closely since the first one in 2004.  More spectators than ever before are expected to attend this year’s competition. The competition is broken up into two parts, the first is the National Qualification Event (NQE) elimination trials and the second part is the Urban Challenge Final Event (UCFE) rally style race.  They are both open to the public and admission is free. These events are taking place at the former George Air Force Base located at 18374 Phantom St, Victorville, CA 92394, San Bernardino County, USA.  For those of you who want to input the coordinates into your vehicles NAV system the Lat/Long are: 34-35-50.9000N / 117-22-58.8000W.  As the host of this series of events DARPA is providing a full range of resources on site to help event attendees make the most of their experience such as: 

Grandstands and access areas – Spectators can get an up-close view of the action from the grandstands located in the start/finish area and designated access areas, there is a public address announcer to keep spectators updated on the progress of the competition. 


   --DARPA photo

Jumbotron and Event Tent – During the final event on Saturday November 3, the Urban Challenge webcast will appear on the Jumbotron next to the grandstand bleachers and on plasma screens in the event tent. 


   --DARPA photo

Competition Webcast and Websites – The entire final event will be covered in a professionally hosted webcast starting at 6:30 AM PT on Saturday November 3 that will feature views of the competition from a variety of positions. Two event websites – http://www.darpa.mil/grandchallenge and http://www.grandchallenge.org will have regularly updated content on the competition and will serve as portals to the final event webcast.

Team and Sponsor Display Area – Several of the teams and their sponsors have exhibits and demonstrations going on in the sponsor area next to the start/finish line.

Comfort Facilities – There are vendors on site to sell food and beverages to spectators. FREE parking and restrooms.

A phoned in report from Linda this evening said that she and Tom had a long day, took many pictures, had lunch with the DARPA officials as guests of the caterer, and collected a lot of literature from the teams to use in her  presentation here at AIM HQ when she and Tom return from the race.  This presentation will be a fundraiser for team supporters, sponsors, and interested public to help pay for their trip.  They will be forwarding some of the pictures this evening via e-mail so that we can get a peak at what they are collecting.  

E-stop testing was today, one of the 35 vehicles went wild and the e-stop was used to prevent it from hitting the wall.  The team involved said the steering commands in the software had been reversed and that this has now been corrected. Lots of sun, lots of interesting people to meet, very friendly atmosphere, air electric with excitement.  Many people have a lot riding on the outcome of these preliminary events.  Linda said it was sad that any team had to be eliminated from competition after all the work they have put into getting that far but understands that it is part of the process of narrowing it down to the final three: First, Second and Third Place.

She has been tanking each of the teams on behalf of a grateful nation for the time and effort that they have put into solving this problem for the US armed forces, and the lives that their work will save.

I agree.  Each of the 89 teams has done a great service for the country. While in the end only three will get prizes every team and every team member can take pride in what we have accomplished collectively.  DARPA says that we have pushed the frontier of robotics technology forward a great distance in a short time and that the world will benefit from that.  I know I find that good to hear after having invested six years and thousands of dollars of my own money in this project, as other AIM Team members have done and as members of  other teams have done.

GO ROBOTS !

Posted by Paul Grayson on October 26, 2007 | Comments (0)