I knew video games were good for something. I just knew it!
Team of Amateurs
Cuts Ahead of Experts
In Computer-Car RaceOctober 19, 2005
Mr. Goeller and his crew ended up buying a lot of the same components used by others in the race, like the laser sensors made by Sick Inc. of Minneapolis. The hard part was writing the software that would allow the computer -- a "ruggedized" version of a regular Intel-powered PC that Mr. Goeller found at a boat show -- to navigate the course, discerning, for example, whether the patch of gray in front was a rock or the shadow of a cloud.
Robotics researchers have spent decades working on those problems. Lacking all such training, Mr. Goeller says his programmers, including staff member Paul Trepagnier and Jorge Nagel, a volunteer from the Tulane University computer-science department, simply began reading lots of books.
Some were on obvious fields, like artificial intelligence, but they also read about videogame programming. Apparently, the challenges involved in guiding an animated monster through a fake landscape are related to those in driving an actual car through a real desert.
