Those who are following the other race coverage closely know that it was announced that Team Jefferson, among others, had been eliminated from competition.

Tony Tether phoned Paul last night and told him that he had decided to pull Team Jefferson in a sweep of phase 2 eliminations. The team and its leadership felt disappointed. The initial indication was that teams would run twice in each test area before any elimination decisions were made.

I spoke to Norm Whitaker, the DARPA lead on the event, and gave him the reasons I thought DARPA should allow our scheduled run to proceed this morning. He suggested I write this appeal to the Grand Challenge box, which would be read by Dr. Tether.

"Around the pits", there were a number of teams who felt the accelerated schedule, and the elimination of second trials, was dismissive. These teams had apparently also registered this frustration with DARPA. We felt more confident that our concerns would be addressed with a responsive review.

The note I wrote to Dr. Tether is below. We took the understanding that DARPA would consider our appeal, and expected to hear something last night. We continued to work on the robot through the night til about 1:30 AM, and kept checking email - but we did not have any word from DARPA. So we decided to muster up for our scheduled time at 7 AM. Unfortunately, when I phoned Norm this morning, he said that "no response" must mean "over".

As we decompressed, Janie teared up a little bit talking to the ladies in the registration tent, and the result was that Dr. Whitaker came over on his golf cart,to speak with Paul and me eyeball-to-eyeball. He said, "Lets go speak with Dr. Tether" who was working at Area A.

Dr. Tether -

I spoke with Norm a few minutes ago about our disqualification and based on that discussion, I wanted to give you a little bit of additional information, and ask if you might consider allowing us a run in Area A in or around the block where we had been previously scheduled.

If you look at our scores in our first trial in Area C, they were our best scores. The impact with the railway arm at the end of that trial did more damage than we initially realized. We had a broken windshield, but we also had cable and sensor damage and alignment issues that we were still discovering late last night. You can see that our subsequent two trials had poorer scores - and this kind of performance was totally inconsistent with our scores at the site visit, which were nearly perfect. I think in terms of the railway arm, it wouldn't be obvious from a very narrow reading of the rules that there would be the possibility of a hanging obstacle. Team Jefferson, as a lesser capitalized team has resources to design around anticipated conditions, but less for general conditions.

I wonder if you might consider this in the context of perhaps allowing us to make another run. I understand you want to keep your resources directed, but we're ready to work hard to 'win the rest of the games'. From our perspective we'd be grateful if you'd consider it, and in balancing two years of hard work for a team of individuals, which has been 99% of the effort, I know for the team, it would certainly leave us with the best outlook on the competition and our involvement, whatever the outcome, for this last 1%.

I know you spoke to Paul earlier - and the conversation came to him without preparation. Paul and I discussed this and we wanted to apologize if there was conveyed any disappointment or frustration that was not reasonably directed. Our intent is to compete with the best possible professionalism whatever you decide.

Thank you for your consideration, Mike

While the conversation with Dr. Tether was cordial, he had not seen or read our appeal. He reminded us we were in "good company" with teams like Caltech having been eliminated. He also ultimately said that we could run our robot at the end of the day if there were time, but that nothing in our performance would change his decision. On that basis, Paul decided not to make the trial.

Norm made a point of thanking us for our participation and contribution. The recognition of the years we've invested was greatly appreciated. We have great admiration for DARPA, what DARPA is doing in advancing this technology, and the positive role we think the challenge plays for students, robotics, and technology. Any frustration we have in the way the challenge and attendant communications were managed does not attenuate that. Reciprocally, we wish to thank DARPA for what they've done for us.

We took the news back to the team in the pits, and as we stood in a circle, Professor Cahen led a discussion with the group, and we spoke about what we had learned and taken away from our experience. And of course, to reinforce the drama and emotion, the Discovery Science team and Mark Marabella showed up to film most of it. We'llcross our fingers that its edited in such a way as to make us appear gracious.

It was cold in the shadow of that trailer as we spoke, but the Discovery folks insisted that we stay out of the sun. When they were done I fell out of the shadows and into the sunlight. I held my face up to the warmth, and I remember thinking that the morning Sun, which was smiling on me, felt like Springtime. I took those moments to soak up its optimism.

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With all this behind us, there was nothing left to do but to wipe down our robot, pack him in his trailer, break our camp, and start to head home.

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Thanks again to all our sponsors... Mike Woosley and Team Jefferson

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