The 26th Association of Unmanned Vehicle Systems International Aerial Robotics Competition American venue is over—for another year. Shortly, the Asia/Pacific Venue will have completed their competition and we’ll know where we stand for 2018 and the second half of Mission 7.
While every team that enters is a winner, no one came close to completing the mission this year at the American venue. The mission is very difficult and requires the teams to stretch the current state of technologies to the limit and beyond.
The official rules are posted on the internet. Included in the official rules is a brief summary of what was demonstrated through the first 6 missions of the competition. Mission 7 (both 7a and 7b) is an attempt to push into new areas of robotic behavior. Mission 7 is conducted inside a building without the benefit of GPS (Global Positioning Satellite) navigation. There are no vertical features in the 20m by 20m arena. There is simply a white grid bounded by a green line on one end and a red line on the other. The first part of the mission is to build an aircraft that will navigate over the arena and herd as many of the 10 free running target ground robots over the green line while avoiding the 4 free running obstacle robots that are carrying vertical PVC pipes. On the competition website there is a 4 minute video that explains what the competition teams are up against.
Did I happen to mention that the mission is to be accomplished autonomously? These systems are not remote controlled. They must perform the mission without human intervention.
This year the judges read 16 papers from the teams that were likely to perform at the American Venue. Out of the 16, 12 teams declared themselves ready to attempt the mission
. Three teams had system failures that didn’t allow them to compete at all. Several began preparations but were unable to turn their vehicles over to computer control. At the end of the day there were four teams that flew autonomously: Kennesaw State, University of Louisville, University of Texas at Austin, and University of Pennsylvania.
Since the contest is about completing the mission, the rules and scoring are such that only those teams that accomplish autonomous flight receive a numerical score. However, the judges over the years have come up with additional awards that a team may earn for their efforts. The awards are based on subjective measures that are scored during static judging.
This year the award for the best presentation went to Ecole Poly of Montreal.
The best paper award went to North Dakota State.
The best integrated system went to University of Pennsylvania (Pittsburgh).
The most innovative vehicle design went to Norwegian University.
Missouri University won the award for the best T-shirt design.
There is one more award that the judges give out but there is no plaque or physical trophy involved. It is the highest static score award. This year it went to Ecole Poly of Montreal. This award entitles the team an additional attempt at performing the mission during the contest. While all teams get three attempts and one “pass,” the winner of the highest static score get 4 attempts along with their ability to pass.
In order to win the International Aerial Robotics Competition a team must objectively demonstrate completion of the mission. It isn’t easy. In fact, some may consider the task virtually impossible. However, seemingly impossible missions have been accomplished in the past as technologies improve.
During the discussions with the teams after this year’s competition, there was a lot of frustration. Some teams felt that their subsystems were “award winning.” However, not one of the free running ground robots was herded across the goal line. In the eyes of the judges awarding prizes to those subsystems would be like giving a prize to a losing formula one racer for best brakes or best windshield wiper.
Now we’re awaiting the results of the Asia/Pacific venue. If there is no completion of the first part of mission 7, we’ll be back next year to try it again. Good luck to everyone and thank you to all that have participated so far.
I was surprised by a Road Runner this afternoon when I started my four mile walk. The plucky little bird captured a small lizard and wandered off down the road. It was cool. The Road Runner is an interesting creature. They look like they’re going really fast when they’re standing still. In Tucson, it is not unusual to see one of these from time to time. When I first moved here in January 2000, I saw one of these 
to muster the resources for 24 campers to build Beetle Bots.
In 
I’ve had some experience with PVC tubing and fittings and decided to sketch out something that might work. I started by measuring the size of the boxes. 
Then I bought the necessary tubing and fittings.
To make them look a little better, I cleaned the pipes with acetone and started fitting the parts together.
I made the shelf materials out of 
Oh…I don’t know…semi reclined in front of the TV? I cleaned up a few minor “alternate facts” on my FaceBook profile and when I logged in I got the question “What’s your position at Retired?” The last time I answered the question “CEO” and I became the CEO of retired. I must have thought it was funny because it stayed that way for years. It’s not true that I spend my days semi-reclined in front of the TV. I’m busier than I’ve ever been. The biggest difference is that I’m mostly busy doing only the things that I enjoy and I don’t get paid.
eat pizza. Soon I’ll be spending a week on the University of Arizona campus helping the Secular Student Alliance when the travelling evangelist, Brother Jed Smock, comes to visit. March is Nancy’s birthday and another Karaoke party. I won’t tell you which one but she reminds me every year that she’s X years younger than me. Of course I point out that percentage wise we’re getting closer. I’ll celebrate the fact that Arizona doesn’t have daylight savings time by NOT changing any of the 47 clocks that we have around the house. Normally the American Atheist convention is on Easter weekend but not this year. This year the convention will be in North Carolina during the total Solar Eclipse in August. We might travel to the California Bay Area for the annual Maker Faire in May. I’m already excited about attending for my fourth time as a camp counselor for Camp Quest Arizona in June. We’ll be building Beetle Bots. 
Nancy and I plan on participating in the Annual International Aerial Robotics Competition during August in Georgia along with the AA Eclipse Convention. Hopefully, we should no longer be landlords in September when we transfer our last rental property to new owners. Then comes my favorite month—October! I’ll spend the entire month in my workshop preparing for Halloween and the party the night before. Not much happens during November but we always end the year with our Winter Solstice celebration.
“May you live in interesting times.” Apparently we’re living under “the Chinese curse” and will continue to do so for quite a while. It is often difficult to stay apolitical. I usually only allow partisan discussions in my group when politics interfere with the secular character of this country. Now there is little that I can do to prevent political discussions from dominating many of our local activities. Whether or not the Chinese curse story is true, we ARE stuck with a political situation that will dominate our lives, at least for a while.
One very cold day near Christmastime, Christine opened the front door to our house and let in a funny looking black dog. She named it Fred but we mostly called him Freddy. He was incredibly short for his size. He was as long as a typical German Shephard but as tall as a Bassett Hound. His ears were pointed and stood up on his head and you might imagine that he had a bit of Corgi in him. He was skinny back then and amazingly well behaved but he was great at begging for food so he didn’t stay skinny long. Before long the family grew attached to him. However, we were on a remote assignment and this situation was not destined to end well. There would come a time when my dad’s tour was over when we would have to leave Canada and say goodbye to Freddy. In order to stave off the inevitable heart break, my father decided to do the responsible thing and find Freddy a new home. He packed up the toys from the chair that Freddy had adopted and took him to a neighbor not far away. Not far enough anyway, Freddy was back sitting on our snow covered porch waiting to be let in the next day. Once again, Dad packed up Freddy in the ’58 Chevy Station Wagon and delivered him to his new owners. Freddy came back and that was that, we definitely had a dog. Why he chose us to stay with us will always be a mystery but it was clear as to why my dad grew attached.
Tucson Atheists now have a roadside sign. In fact, we have a couple. We earned them from the city of Tucson for cleaning up a couple of miles of roadway in Tucson once a month for over six months. We discovered that the signs were up before we started our 7th cleanup. It’s a point of pride that we had from 12 to twenty volunteers during every cleanup. The road is a mile south of my house and they were scheduled for early Sunday morning. (What else is an Atheist doing on Sunday morning?) We worked for two hours then gathered at my house for sandwiches and cold drinks/ There were no complaints. It’s cooler in the morning and that was very important during a Tucson summer. We’ll continue to do the road cleanup but my guess is that we can start a bit later during the winter months.
AZAtheist's Blog 