Thirty-two isn't just a number to Victor Tango, Virginia Tech's Urban Challenge race team.
The number on the team's Ford Escape hybrid memorializes the thirty-two students and faculty members who lost their lives in the April 16, 2007 massacre on their campus.
"It's something we all had to live with and deal with," says Victor Tango team leader Charles Reinholtz. One of the classrooms where the shootings took place was Victor Tango's regular meeting place, and the brother of a team member was one of those wounded.
The team has made the final cut to compete in the race this Saturday, November 3. Their qualification runs complete, they're now making final tweaks to their code and running tests in one of the practice areas.
Team members in the background of this photo are working to solve problems caused by erroneous GPS signals on a section of the race course that was also used for the navigation-and-parking qualifying tests. Misleading GPS signals have plagued so many of the teams on the same section of track that rumors have begun circulating that DARPA may somehow be manipulating GPS signals there to keep the bots on their toes.
Victor Tango team member Patrick Currier figures if anyone could do that, it would be DARPA, but he thinks it's more likely that buildings and trees in that area are simply scattering the normal GPS signals. Just to be sure, however, the team made some test GPS measurements there. They found nothing unusual.
