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Team Jefferson
Robot: "Tommy"
Body: Custom silver-egg-shaped design based on a dune
buggy
Affiliations: Hobbyists/Perrone Robotics
Hometown: Charlottesville, VA
Leader: Paul Perrone
Team size: 8
Budget: ~$60,000 on engineering/parts, ~$30,000 on
travel
Key technologies: Perrone RoboticsTM
patent pending MAXTM (Mobile Autonomous X-bot)
general-purpose robotics software platform running in an
open Java-based environment.
Biggest challenge(s): With only $60,000 for parts, 10
person-months of software development time, and a single
$200 processor card, one software guy tried pulling together
a small multidisciplinary team of folks to demonstrate a
"faster and cheaper" approach for building autonomous
vehicles.
Race results: Did not qualify despite scoring
What they're up to now: Pursuing licensing and
integration of MAX platform for various robotics and
automation applications. Created "Tommy Jr.," a smaller
platform based on an off-road go-kart frame for application
to outdoor surveillance, security, and payload delivery. A
few team members are still involved with these projects,
while others are back to their day jobs and school.
Where the vehicle is now: A rebuilt Tommy resides in
the Perrone workshop in Charlottesville and continues to be
used for demonstration and exhibition at conferences and as
an evolving test platform for autonomous ground vehicle
R&D.
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