Many people ask about and are interested in the physical construction and componentry of Tommy Jr. But many know that the 'secret sauce' lies in what cannot be seen: the software. The software behind Tommy Jr. represents the thought process codifying how T Jr. behaves and responds to the world around him.
2007 has just begun and we've been cranking it up a notch on Tommy Junior given new sponsorship support. In addition to Perrone Robotics and BDMetrics having made financial contributions, we've recently gotten support from the University of Virginia (UVa) Engineering School, 45Fix, and TDFund. We've got a larger and more focused ops team this year and it has really helped the team move along financially. We're still working on a small budget, but we've had earlier committments which is of tremendous a benefit.
Welcome to the Team Jefferson blog. I'm the team lead for Team Jefferson and will be blogging here about "Tommy Junior" and Team Jefferson progress and antics.
Team Jefferson was established in 2004 by yours truly in order to enter the 2005 DARPA Grand Challenge. The 2005 DARPA Grand Challenge was a race of autonomous ground vehicles traversing over 150 miles of desert terrain in order to claim a $2M prize. By 'autonomous' I mean no drivers inside and no drivers in control. The cars drove themselves.
