Machine Intelligence Laboratory

The competition was held from July 7-9 in Orlando at Disney's Coronado Springs Resort. The AUVSI annual "Unmanned Systems" symposium followed.

  • The final standings from the competition. We finished in seventh place.
  • The Rules for the competition.
  • Our Journal Article for 2000.
  • This year there were thirteen competitors! Here is a listing of the teams and links to their web pages.


    This is our goal....sort of

    As we are working, this is the goal we are keeping in mind. It is not invariant, but we would like to follow it as closely as possible. The motors are going to be smaller than the ones rendered here, so shrink them a bit in your mind and you will get the idea.

    ...T-minus nine weeks

    Things are coming along more slowly than we might like, but we are confident that we will have the sub ready in time. This is an image of the new body with its battery tray. The electronics tray slides in above it, with end caps sealing it. Dave is finalizing the motor mounts, and believes he can have the body ready for water tests in 2 weeks. Some of us are a bit skeptical, but we will give him the benefit of the doubt, and hope he is right.

    Our new processor, a single board 586 133MHz has arrived, also our bigger hard drive and a PC104-PCMCIA adapter. Within a week, we will have the new electronics running, and can port over the last sub's code (Motor Driver control, Compass Interface, Pressure Sensor interface, Wireless Ethernet and Sonar Driver). Our new sensors, fortunately, can be developed without having the sub or the main processor ready, so we are not panicking.


    ...T-minus seven weeks

    No, that is not an error. This is what the sub still looks like!! Not surprisingly, the sub is not ready. It would appear that Dave's estimate was a touch optimistic. Work is coming along nicely on the electronics and sensors. The motor mounts are more difficult to make than Dave thought they would be. He believes we can be ready for water tests in two weeks. We are again quietly skeptical.

    ...T-minus five weeks

    I do not think that we need to conduct those water tests yet! The hard points on the body are for motor mounts, through-hull connections, and end-cap mounts. Shop-wise, Dave says, the difficult work is now done, and we should be ready in water tests in, you guessed it, two weeks.

    ...T-minus three weeks

    I still do not think that we need to conduct those water tests yet! We have skin! All we need to do is mount the motors, mount the Burton connectors, and start doing some water tests! We have devised a new stragedy that we think will speed up the construction of the sub.... see the image of Dave. Specifically, look at the bond he has formed with his sub. We brought in an ordained minister and it is official.... they are as one till July 9. *sniff-sniff* "beautiful!"

    ...T-minus two+ weeks

    Wahoo! We are ready for water testing! If all goes well, we can have the sucker running in two days. The electronics are ready for prime-time, we just need a day to integrate it all into the body.

    ...T-minus two+ weeks
    We leak like a sieve! We have fallen into a pattern of testing, drying, applying sealant, waiting for it to cure, and repeat. Somewhere in that pattern, we are sneaking the electronics in, wiring everything up and turning motors. After about three days of this pattern, we have gotton waterproof. NOW we are ready to rock!

    ...T-minus two weeks

    We are now loving our jobs! The sub has gotten a coat of paint, her new tail and nose farings, and her new sonar altimiter! We are running her in the university pool every day and working out the system kinks. By the end of this week, we plan to have the controllers trained for height-depth and course following. Our mission specific sensors are all ready to be added to the body, and all the sofware for these sensors is in place.