The Honor of Being First

Boss, judged best of the bots during qualifying, was supposed to be the
first robot out of the chute at today's Urban Challenge. But in the first
surprise of the day, it ended up 10th.




It turns out that the honor of being in the first chute proved fatal to
our GPS sensor. The combination of radiofrequency interference from a
Jumbotron erected next to the No. 1 chute and the radio interference from
the line of eight robots behind Boss that were waiting to enter the start
area fried Boss's GPS, forcing the pit crew to replace and reset it.
That meant that Victor Tango, the Virginia Tech entry, started first,
followed by Stanford, Penn's Ben Franklin team, MIT, University of Central Florida, Cornell and Oshkosh. The Honeywell/Intelligent Vehicle Systems entry started 8th, but immediately hard trouble, turning back toward the chutes; it was paused and placed back in the chute. Team Annie Way started next, followed -- finally -- by Boss.

Once underway, Boss looked like the champ its been all week, moving
quickly and smartly to the start chute.

Category:

News & Politics

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• urban
• challenge
• tartan
• racing
• tartanracing