Racing the clock
Team Gator Nation’s fully robotic Toyota Highlander appears ready for race day Monday near Ben Hill Griffin Stadium. A dozen engineering students are working 7 a.m. to 1 a.m. shifts to prepare the car for qualification events for the Urban Challenge in Victorville, Calif., late this month, said Dave Armstrong, project manager. The event, sponsored by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, will pit 36 robotic cars against each other in an urban environment, with the robotic cars expected to stop at intersections, pass one another and otherwise “perform as well as someone with a California driver’s license” said one DARPA official. Armstrong said the car’s sensors and mechanical parts are working well and that the team is focusing all its energies on software. The car’s graphics, printed on a flexible wrap that stretches around the body, were designed by John Dunne, a junior in advertising working in the College of Engineering’s publications office.
