 "IALR's initiatives that involve the VIRginia International Raceway have already, even in the formative stages, brought in new business that would never have come to Southside Virginia. VIPER is bringing tomorrow's motorsport technologies to the heart of Virginia's racing region today. Motorsports is a fast growing industry and one this area can embrace and benefit from easily as new teams and suppliers locate here to be near VIPER at VIR, its test facilities, and IALR expertise." -- Connie Lee Nyholm, managing partner, VIRginia International Raceway |
| Danville Robot Warriors Preparing for Battle |
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By Tara Bozick Reprinted from Danville's Register & Bee
Robots emerged from a local lab Wednesday to show spectators they’re ready for a war challenge. A team of researchers and students from the Institute for Advanced Learning and Research and Virginia Tech have been constructing “battle-ready” robots as part of the 2010 Multi-Autonomous Ground-robotic International Challenge, or MAGIC. MAGIC judges visited the 10 participating teams in June to narrow the competition down to five teams. The local team will find out in July if it made the cut. The final challenge, which involves performing several tasks within time constraints, takes place in Australia in November, where first place wins $750,000.
The team’s cooperative control strategy — how the robots communicate with each other — is the first one of this kind of complexity, he said.
“Including the battlefield scenario, we have lots of places where people are working in the face of risk,” Tomo said. “These people could work in a safer environment more efficiently.”
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