First Test

Oct. 25, 2007
7:00am- The team arrives in the pit to prepare the vehicles for a calibration run. Going through the same motions as we have thousands of times before, the team brings the vehicles and software online. A team meeting is called to go over the test plan, so that everyone knows their role. The alloted 30 minutes is a short amount of time to do testing in, so everything must run smoothly.

9:30am- Odin is placed within the boundaries of the practice area by team members. Everyone is evacuated from the area, and looks on anxiously from behind K-barriers. The DARPA officials flip the switch to send Odin into autonomous for the first time since leaving Virginia Tech. Odin jumps to a magnificent start spitting out dirt and gravel from behind his wheels. Twenty feet later, Odin comes to an unexpected halt and exits autonomous mode- far from what the team had hoped for. It was immediately apparent to the team that the failure was not caused by any of our systems. The source of the failure was hypothesized to be the Omnitech E-Stop, a piece of hardware required and provided by DARPA. This would not be the first time that we had experienced trouble with the Omnitech system. The Omnitech technician soon arrived and confirmed the failure. The team is forced to reschedule for a later test time.

12:30- Second test run. This time Odin is turned loose and is able to complete his first "real" autonomous run flawlessly. Team Victor Tango proceeds to test several functionalities in the alloted 30 minutes. Satisfied with all of the systems, the team returns to the pit.