Unlike yesterday, today has been very low key (at least for us). We did one run on course C this morning, and we performed absolutely flawlessly, even meeting the mystery checkpoint. Still we will have to wait. We think we have done well enough to get in, but of course we could be wrong.

At the same time it was clear that a number of other teams were still trying hard to get in. CajunBot (the team from the University of Louisiana … go figure) attempted the long course B over and over until they finally smashed into an obstacle and pushed it into an abandoned house …. we suspect they are not going on. Team Lux also repeated the course, but ended up going down a one-way street … the wrong way. We suspect they are not in.

So what do robotics engineers who have been operating on much sleep do when they have a few hours free. We decided the mood at the test site was decidedly too stressed so we decided to go trick-or-treating with our bot. Of course, to go trick-or-treating, requires one to dress up the bot and in this case we dressed it up as Oskosh (the huge intimidating green machine). Andrew did all the design work, and Tom and Gary helped put the whole thing together. Don installed an amplifier so we could put out the menacing growl that the Oskosh bot emits when it moves into autonomous mode.

The trick-or-treating was a great big success and allowed a lot of people to let off steam. Still, we all have to wait until 11AM PST tomorrow for the finalists.