Cajun has to do with crawfish and etoufee and bayous and stuff like that. But robotic vehicles? Yes, indeed. Let me explain. One night while I was down in Louisiana, the SSon drove us to his office on the campus of Louisiana State University at Lafayette. The idea was for me to see his excellent pix of amphibian eyes. There are two of them above.
But while we were in the building, he took me to see RaginBot, the robotic car that is the successor to the CajunBot; both have been contestants in DARPA's highly publicized challenge to create fully autonomous robotic vehicles. So -- though this university was originally an ag school, it is currently competing quite well against the Big Boys such as Stanford and Carnegie Mellon.
Here's the mechanical works (above) and some of the sensor arrays (below). If you'd like tech talk about Ragin'Bot,
here's a video for you. There's also a
blog.
The sponsors are thanked above; the logo for the enterprise is below. It is fitting that after all three of the DARPA challenges, the Cajun crew and their backers have produced a Cajun cook-out for one and all. Everything bought locally in California, site of the challenges, except for the crawfish, brought in just for the occasion. (Yes, as described in the blog, sounds like it must have been etoufee.)
Cajun has to do with crawfish and etoufee and bayous and stuff like that. But robotic vehicles? Yes, indeed. Let me explain. One night while I was down in Louisiana, the SSon drove us to his office on the campus of Louisiana State University at Lafayette. The idea was for me to see his excellent pix of amphibian eyes. There are two of them above.
But while we were in the building, he took me to see RaginBot, the robotic car that is the successor to the CajunBot; both have been contestants in DARPA's highly publicized challenge to create fully autonomous robotic vehicles. So -- though this university was originally an ag school, it is currently competing quite well against the Big Boys such as Stanford and Carnegie Mellon.
Here's the mechanical works (above) and some of the sensor arrays (below). If you'd like tech talk about Ragin'Bot, here's a video for you. There's also a blog.
The sponsors are thanked above; the logo for the enterprise is below. It is fitting that after all three of the DARPA challenges, the Cajun crew and their backers have produced a Cajun cook-out for one and all. Everything bought locally in California, site of the challenges, except for the crawfish, brought in just for the occasion. (Yes, as described in the blog, sounds like it must have been etoufee.)
I'm so proud of them! The rest of the U.S. doesn't really know what gems we have living among us west of Baton Rouge!
ReplyDeleteAnother great Cajun post GJ, thank you so much!!
~Anon in AV.
Neat vehicle. Glad that they can compete with the big boys.
ReplyDeleteVery cool!
ReplyDeleteThe search for the autonomous vehicle is very interesting (and fun to watch).
Also very cool pictures of amphibian eyes. :)
anon av -- it's cool that you've enjoyed the Cajun posts so much. I have several more to go, one of which won't be upbeat (the one about Hurricane Rita.)
ReplyDeletesteve -- I'm all for upstart competitors. Especially if they also serve up etoufee.
tombo -- about those eyes -- I watch the Sson take a pic of a spadefoot toad a couple of years ago. He did it handheld -- and them enlarged the picture to show the reflection of the photographer in the eye of toad. Would I could hold myself that steady -- or see to focus that well!
Now, I want one of those!!!
ReplyDeleteFNFM
FNFM -- great idea. Think. There you are, sitting in your recliner watching the tube. You call up to order a pizza, send your RaginBot over to pick it up & deliver it & there you are.
ReplyDelete