2012 Sparkfun AVC (Autonomous Vehicle Competition)

Last Saturday (6/16) was the annual Sparkfun Autonomous Vehicle Competition where ground and air robots run a timed race around the Sparkfun Building in Boulder. What a show! (I saw some of it but was mostly stuck in the pits trying to get my robot to work)


The ground winner, Team 0x27, 1/5 scale buggy

Pics my friend took: http://susanbrady.smugmug.com/Events/2012-SparkFunAVC/23626357_VmgGB5#!i=1911719671&k=dS2vs63

Here’s a write-up for my robot, Data Bus: http://www.bot-thoughts.com/2012/06/2012-autonomous-vehicle-competition-avc.html

I am collecting AVC videos on this playlist: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL890A8244F3EE6DC5

If it wasn’t hard enough to build a robot to drive itself 270 meters around the narrow parking lot of a large building, giant red barrels were added on the first leg. A hoop was situated in the center of the path; robots passing through it earn a 30 second time deduction.

But a misstep a few meters later could land a robot off the curb and down into the pond! If the robot makes it this far, on the next leg, curbs jut out waiting to grind unlucky bots to a halt and, surviving this obstacle a giant pothole awaits robots as they approach the last turn.

I counted 34 ground vehicles out of 50 entrants that actually made it to the event. Of those I think something like 7 or 8 made it around the building. The air vehicles – well, doing this in three dimensions isn’t just 3 times harder. I have no clue how many made it or didn’t…

Hi, Michael.

Once again, congratulations on your 3rd place victory. I didn’t see your race on the live stream, but I was cheering for you and was happy to see you had a time on the scoreboard at some point when I tuned in.

Thank you for posting about the competition here. I shared your blog post with people here at Pololu yesterday. We hope you were not seriously injured and are recovering nicely!

I enjoy reading your detailed blog posts about Databus. I hope come visit us in Las Vegas some time!

- Ryan

Ryan thanks much! My ankle is doing better, just a flesh wound, as they say :slight_smile:

The Pololu 3.5A 5V buck regulator has been powering Data Bus beautifully for 2+ years now and the MinIMU-9, even though I’m only using the gyro of it, now, has worked out great!

(I may switch it for a Pololu L3G4200D gyro breakout I have on hand so that I can use it for something that requires a nice 9dof IMU/AHRS)

PS: I will most definitely visit next time I’m Vegas-bound. :slight_smile: Likewise if anyone from Pololu is heading to or through Denver, give me a shout.