Above is a recap of the Sparkfun 2013 AVC. As you might know the 3DR multicopter and rover teams placed very high in the 2013 event. There should be sufficient time to dust off your autonomous vehicle, be it a plane, multicopter, or rover and be ready for the 2014 event!
Here is a link to the announcement Sparkfun 2014 AVC Announcement
Comments
Yes, I'll be flying in a day early this year so I'll make the pre-pre-party.
OK Robert,
I'll be twisting Peter's arm to come up with something for the plane course that will take at least an hour, maybe 2 hours - 30 or 40 laps of the reservoir perhaps? :) Then we will see…
I'll start planning entertainment now. Nobody but DaveC came to the pre-pre-party last year so I better step it up I guess.
It's got me all of a flutter, my fan club is coming with me this time :)
Who else suggested crowd safety nets on the aftershow feedback forms? I put it in CAPITALS. Maybe we should make a gentle reminder. I'd be happy to pay a few bucks more for entry as a gesture towards safety....
Not nets everywhere obviously, but defo some between take-off/landing and the masses.
And then if it's safe I'm gonna tear up the sky!
And more importantly we will get to see Robs BIG heli in action!
Yeah, cool, can't wait! I'm glad they will be separating copters and airplanes, as they do have very different mission profiles. I hope to ask them if they will allow me to use a helicopter to compete in the copter competition, but also do a demo run of the airplane course, just to show that it can be done.
I'd love to be able to fly my big helicopter, but I don't expect they will do what's needed for safety to allow that. But, the 500 size machine I'm building now should be more capable than the 450 I used last year, and yet still be relatively safe.
@Randy,
I will agree with you on the necessity of having a spotter. I was all by myself on the rover course and could not see the back part of the course as it was blocked by the hay bales. A spotter could have helped me adjust my waypoints much faster and more accurately. The only item that I missed on the course was the hoop, but I did make the ramp jump two out of three heats. My advice to the rover competitors is to make your waypoints as accurate as possible in relation to the layout of the course for 2014 and try to run the course the day before or as early as possible the morning of the competition.
Regards,
TCIII ArduRover2 Developer
Last year was my first year going and what really shocked me was the difference the high altitude made. That really hurt the planes as well because the launcher that worked near sea level simply didn't provide the umph required in Boulder which is something around 2k above sea level.
The other things we learned last year was the need for spotters. You just can't see how close you're coming to the obstacles (like the wicket) from the launch area.
@Swift it was made too hard for fixed wing platforms by having a rubbish launch area. Lets hope they change that. Oh and improve the streaming for those of us that can't make it. It is an excellent competition though.
Yeah, outback type of challenges minus the "self destruct" requirements would be nice.
great! had been waiting and hoping that the event will be announced early :) cant wait to start planing the journey!
Fantastic! I hope they make it hard enough, maybe add some image recognition requirement or something tough like that.
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