VT AUVT

Yesterday, we placed dead last in static judging (out of the teams that pre-qualified). This meant that at the end of the day we got last choice of qualifying run times. Since the 7:30AM time slot is always the least desireable, we got it. Since the run wouldn’t matter if we didn’t finish something beyond the gate, the decision was made to stay up last night until we got Barreleye to find the buoy. Keep in mind we just got the camera drivers working yesterday afternoon.

A quick trip to Arby’s later, we headed to the pool at the Kona Kai Resort (the official competition lodging). The pool was to be open from 8pm to 5am, so we wouldn’t have to leave early. We threw (gently dropped, really) Barreleye into the pool and started running the vision code.

We soon got the camera to detect the buoy, and after a quick change of the wrong batteries (and then the right ones) we were fine tuning it (and by we I mean Stephen). Stephen persevered and fine-tuned the controller numbers until it could find and hit the flare reliably. We finally have vision!

Enthused and dead tired, we retuned to the hotel around 3:30AM (PST). Since we had been testing, we threw the batteries on the charger to make sure we would have power for the 7:30 run. We tried to get a few hours of sleep, and were soon awakened by the two team members who weren’t up all night.

We drove straight over to Transdec and unloaded straight onto the launching platform. After installing the batteries and fixing one loose connection, we went straight into the water to begin the run. The first run looked good, and Barreleye very slowly dove straight through the gate. We excitedly ran around the pool to see if she would catch sight of the buoy. We were a bit dissapointed when she didn’t, but the diver dragged her back and we started again.

On the next few runs it didn’t dive, so I quickly recalibrated the depth sensor and we tried one final go. Yet again she powered straight and level through the gate, and yet again we were dissapointed (but definitely not surprised) to see that she missed the buoy.

All in all, we are very glad to have semi-working vision processing after one day’s work (thanks Simulink!), and we are looking forward to watching the finals tomorrow!