Doug interviewed me at the end of the day. There were a number of common themes throughout the day. Every single team was very excited to be there, regardless of their race status. Every team is committed to returning for the next race. Well, so are we. Every team that I interviewed today is committed to staying together. All of them invited me to track their evolution over the course of the next year. I will, along with all of the other teams that I didn’t interview.
One thing that was interesting about the make up of the competitive field is that each team’s vehicle possessed features and capabilities in which DARPA is very interested. When these features and capabilities are combined they paint a very interesting picture of one heck of a capable autonomous vehicle. I will spend some time over the next couple of days combing through my notes to pull a good set of these features and capabilities together.
I have a ton of pictures from today that I need to process and post, including a picture of Steve Wozniak on a Segway. That’s right; Woz was at the Grand Challenge. I even got to meet him. It was one of those moments that totally takes you by surprise and you freeze the instant you realize its magnitude. What a waste. I also have a ton of follow up emails to get out to the team leaders I spoke with and others. Colleagues that I was in Primm with will be getting me some of their content from the event, including short video clips and interesting pictures.
I am looking forward to the next event. I learned a lot today about getting key interviews, organizing coverage for an event, and structuring the webcast. I sincerely enjoyed working with Doug and look forward to doing this again. What should we cover next? Drop me a comment with a suggestion.
