We are proud of the record of our team. We are pleased we were in the 19 remaining teams as of last evening, but DARPA selected only 11 teams to proceed to the finals on Saturday. There were some other really great teams that were also not selected. The technology advances we made in preparing for the race are a huge leap forward in automotive control and sensor technology and we hope to deploy them to North Carolina’s benefit.
Thank you to all our sponsors and friends for your support. We couldn’t have come as far without you. It has been an honor to represent you in this historic event.
Today we ran Course C again. Course C tests the Lone Wolf’s ability to correctly navigate intersections. Scenarios were set up with 1, 2 and 3 other cars in the intersection, the Lone Wolf following another car into an intersection with traffic, and multiple cars lined up to enter an intersection. The Lone Wolf went through its paces. It did great. There was one interesting maneuver during the run. The Lone Wolf thought it was blocked right before a checkpoint and turned itself around. It then proceeded to re-route itself back to the check point. Remembering there was a blockage before the checkpoint, it did another 3 point turn (K-turn) and continued on its mission. It was cool to watch. After viewing the on-board video of the run (after the run was completed), we found that the Lone Wolf also encountered a road blocked by construction barrels. It performed a nice 3 point turn and again re-routed itself so it could continue on its mission. Very cool.
It was another tense day in the pit. Several teams were told that they were eliminated. Some were told they are fully qualified. Again, we are in limbo, waiting for the announcement of the finalists at 2pm eastern tomorrow (Thursday.)
So tonight we wait again, hoping tomorrow will bring a positive outcome.
DARPA has cut 6 more teams, for a total of 12 teams eliminated. Insight Racing is in the remaining 23 teams competing for one of the 20 slots in the November 3rd Urban Challenge race. The courses are extremely difficult and the competition is very intense. The tension mounts as we continue our runs as DARPA evaluates our capabilities.
Recent interviews include: Forbes.com, Korean PBS, and a French news company. Discovery Channel was by today and plans to cover our next run.
Today DARPA started to announce the teams which have qualified and those which have been eliminated. Details are found in their Press Release. At this point, we are still proceeding. We continue to make runs as requested by DARPA. The schedules are less predictable now and you have to be ready to run at any time. On Wednesday, we expect DARPA to schedule runs until they