hey guys so we just got invited to an
awesome event in Australia come with me
oh my god are we interrupting a gang
meeting oh boy t-rex yeah that's so
creepy hey guys we're here down under
just south of Brisbane with Ben Sam
today and we're gonna be converting some
cars to self-driving this weekend so Ben
flow so all the way from Canada to
participate in this event and make a
video about it so Wayne tell us a bit
more about what the event is and what
we're gonna you got it well thanks for
coming Jane great to have you here so
what would really like to see is is
everyone in the world build robots you
know there's a lot of talk about robots
coming to take jobs and we think the
solution to that is if is if everyone
makes a robot then everyone's got a job
right so that's what we're we're
grabbing a hold off so we've got some
some cars here they're picked up for the
the grand sum of a few hundred dollars
we got a few bits of mechanics together
we got about 10 people working on each
car we got we got three days and by the
end of it they're all going to be
self-driving
all right so these are these are all app
tools power tools equipment actuator is
everything you need to kind of automate
the systems of a car we've got we
actually rip out the steering column put
in a power steering one from the records
so it's yeah it's a complete conversion
of the time and the cause we got some
the most serious equipments and off the
hits and that kind of thing a few
welders as well so this here is an
Nvidia Jetson tx2 and what this is is a
really kind of a common platform for
advanced sort of self-driving car
artificial intelligence type stops you
know a hobbyist robotics projects yeah
well makes them really cool is that the
exact same type of technology and this
goes inside a real Tesla the same kind
of CUDA cores same kind of course so we
said it worked on these for a while and
then Ken had the bright idea of doing
some real cars and so we just took the
same sensors off the top and then scaled
up yeah awesome yeah all right so that's
all the tech we're gonna be using yeah I
guess go step away for us the teams to
show off and start hacking that's it
awesome wait your horse do it thanks
James
the general things to note is we've done
what we can to kind of help look after
you but there are serious kind of safety
implications of what we're doing the
barriers that you're standing next to
are rated to 40 kilometres an hour
they're not all filled so that's
apparently going to be fixed in 20
minutes everything that we do it's gonna
be BSD licensed or Creative Commons as
applicable so you're all free to do
whatever you want with it that means
anything that you bring here any code or
diagrams or stuff that you bring here
that you develop here is now for
everyone here to do and everyone else in
the world to do whatever they want with
safety is like the biggest concern I
have with all of you most of you
probably from what I could tell hadn't
use many power tools before I know James
has straps and rocket engines to his
hands before and then he burned a face
off the dummy so like I don't know if I
trust in me but so I've got we've got
gloves we've got glass safety glasses
and got earplugs and you all should be
wearing coloured Footwear at the whole
time all the fences are electrified
please do not interact with the fences
all the goats are horns and they know
how to use them the whole purpose of
this event is to make sure that everyone
in the world is ready for robotics so we
want to make sure this event is a
welcoming place for every person on
planet Earth
alright so we got an awesome Mitsubishi
Colt
that we're going to be converting to
self-driving and we've got an awesome
team of nine people here control freaks
hi my name is Erin I'm the team leader
for out anima still driving car this
weekend I'm a mechatronics engineer and
now I work in autonomous systems yes I
wrote here at Brisbane Australia
self-gravity we don't have the seats
it'd be a lot easier to work on it if
there's a bit more room in there
can your chair do this
it's even got the original repair manual
Wow what years this one I think this is
an 84
sometimes Willie I'm a graduate student
with csro in Palma and Brisbane with the
project here I'll be giving the card
ability to control the brakes and the
steering at the gear shifts by residues
adding more bespoke that we can control
myself
os at the moon I'm a project engineer at
Chalmers University and today I'm
working on the electronics and
integrating all of our motors without
alright so we're just making the main 12
volt power line that goes from the
battery in the car into the backseat
Morosi off for all electronics we've got
some battery lugs listen so be measured
on the back of the car in case the car
goes rogue so I'm gonna have to chase
the car and hit that back
hi I'm Becks I originally studied
robotics and a lot of the stuff I do
nowadays in software so I'm looking
forward to getting more hands-on in the
electronics and mechanical science stuff
whether whether we cut these off and do
our internals they've got energy to
Victor I only got little wrinkles yeah
I'm some this little gate my name's
Thomas I'm a QUT student studying
mechatronics and at the moment we're
working on some of the mechanical
aspects in the ice and you put well yep
that's powering everything what what are
the relays there just for the ignition
hey yeah thank you
we only need one food mission is that
right yeah and I think the power just go
straight I'm tired I'm a student at UTS
and Sydney I've been on the Formula
Student team there for three years now
and today I'm working on the electronics
then wearing
you see 19 Nelson Falls around now I
love to find something hey I'm James
Hobson and wait why am I doing this
interview the oh shit switch works so
you just need to hook up to the Arduino
and we've got an emergency off so what
we're gonna do next is we're gonna be
making a mounting point inside the glove
box for our main computer we're gonna
try and find a way to reroute the air
conditioning fans into the glove box so
that we've got integrated cooling so
that we can have our computer in its own
self-contained unit away from all the
other clutter and hopefully it'll have
not fully there sorry darling and look
pretty nice and well they we need the
schematics verify what they actually I
think we when I was Jacko do pussy you
know I work as a machine learning
engineer at pinch in Fortitude Valley
and I mean it to basically learn a lot
from people have a bit of fun making a
self-driving car and yeah just hopefully
make something that works delicious is a
damn spider in there
I can't find now I know it's here
I don't like space my name is Riley
Martin I'm a freshly graduated high
school student and now a full-time
worker as part of the hack Smith team
I'm here to just participate in the
event and be as much of a help as I can
and learn about the wonderful world of
autonomous cars and you know I'm excited
to be out here
that makes no strikes hey all right so
we're about halfway through day one of
the self-driving car build and it's
going pretty good
I say mechanically we're almost about
50% done that's how you dance yeah where
are they so about 50% done the
mechanical build now to actually steer
the vehicle in our remote-control Baja
build we have to use a windshield wiper
motor coupled to the steering column but
in this case what they did was they've
actually gotten us a whole bunch of new
steering columns from I believe Toyota
Corollas and Mazda 3 and new steering
columns are actually have power steering
with a motor built in now the tricky
part is it's a different car company and
this cars in 1984 so hopefully by the
end of day today we'll have all the
hardware stuff done all the actuators
mounted and tomorrow will just be a
matter of bending up the software and
then taking it for real driving we don't
need these anymore either
hi I'm John my background is in research
robotics PhD and machine learning and
I'm here to help where I can on the
automotive side but really to try and
bring some computer vision and some of
those stimulates approaches to our cool
car the ability to pick up a piece of it
just for a two-year-old to do that the
lead robotics advisor this weekend is
Peter Corke who's a distinguished
professor at the Queensland University
of Technology and his online or box
classes have reached over 90,000
students his goal is to bring robotics
education to the entire world so we're
on a YouTube channel called blacksmith
and our main goal is to inspire kids
around the world into STEM fields there
is a market out there for or need out
there for people to to learn about these
more advanced robotic concepts you
considered that for primary school
students and high school students
there's a time stuff and it's good and
it it certainly is encouraging and very
motivating but to my mind it's more
experimental than principal when you
come to engineering you can't just keep
backing to work so if our viewers want
to learn a bit more about robotics
where's the head they should go to robot
Academy and that's robot Academy dot ne
T dot a you I'll have the links in the
description below and maybe some videos
linked in the card annotation all right
so it's day two now and the team pushed
hard last night we got pretty much all
the mechanical stuff done all the linear
actuators are mounted and there's just a
little bit of wiring and testing each
component individually hopefully in
maybe an hour or two we'll actually be
able to test the car in remote control
mode once we've tested all the systems
like that we'll be able to start working
on the self-driving AI
all right since we're going for a Mad
Max theme and we don't have the drawers
anymore I'm just gonna remove these
sensors here
first turn the lights on when the doors
are open and we don't want that because
it's just my total battery especially
for do some testing about the engine
running
the nice thing is the switch clearly is
bronze the frame literally yam plug it
doesn't work
secondly functions that interact with
each other you know that's all being
soldiers but always be able to just its
delay just in milliseconds yes yes 3,000
you know anything at the end
so but at the moment on the card we have
is just the Arduino that's just bad yeah
I'm the computer with the serial yeah
yeah but the computer the serial what
the necessary thing all right so to give
our car a bit more range we're gonna
actually try making our own
omnidirectional antenna to mount on top
of the roof so we actually use Wi-Fi to
control it up to hopefully 2030 meters
or so whereas right now we either have
to use the wired Xbox controller which
is only 2 meters long to be running
alongside the car which you can imagine
might not be the most safest thing to do
so let's see what we knew this antenna
all right cigar makeshift
omnidirectional Wi-Fi antenna right here
hooked up to a standard router and now
we're gonna test it out and see what
kind of range we get so let's go take a
walk
that famously can you connect it first
all right dropping off it's pretty far
away can't even see it from here lower
that's up I'll be higher left left left
left left left left left a bit just a
bit more stop there we go
before you right it doesn't seem like
I'm pointing at it don't usually either
good but
all right so the third and final day of
the self-driving car hackathon and the
teams are scrambling to get these things
done almost everyone is up super late
last night trying to work out some of
the bugs in the code I think only one
car has successfully been driven in
remote-controlled mode I am self driving
mode yet our team is almost ready right
now we're just charging the battery and
hopefully we'll get down in the field
and be able to test it remote-control
mode and then self-driving mode
hi
like
yeah
ah
okay do you need anyone else with you
we have everyone else back now the plan
was to also use a webcam to be able to
do basic obstacle avoidance
unfortunately we weren't able to get to
that point in the competition now
earlier on the weekend GPS data points
were recorded along the inside and
outside edge of the track which gives
the car a digital boundary that knows
not to cross this event would not have
been possible without all the generous
sponsors Telstra provided us with high
quality 4 GX internet and Nighthawk
routers Telstra kept the event online
with the world's best 4 GX network the
motor traders Association of Queensland
provide lots of equipment and advice for
building the cars this include tools and
the Sun shelters neo provides
sponsorship of food and drinks for all
the volunteers and participants and
provided guidance throughout the
challenge we'd also like to thank BAU
raha lidar ethereal capital and
Blackbird ventures coltec provide
mentoring and a presentation on their
work in RC and autonomous systems scouts
Australia Queensland provide
accommodation for all participants
through loaning 15 tents trade tools
provided a discount on all tools
purchased for the challenge and bonus
equipment Woodstock provide the space
and redbull provided drinks to ensure we
could work all night long and finally
we'd like to thank the queensland
community especially Monica Bradley Tony
wheeler and Kylie Hickling
we've got this amazing trophy so there's
clearly two teams that are kind of you
know grabbing onto one of these wings
and trying to tear it in half so I think
we'll have to figure out you know what
happens you know this is this is a month
in the making this is not like a year or
anything this is a fever dream and
thanks for coming and being part of it
we want to make this so much bigger we
want to take us everywhere in the world
we want you to turn into into monster
trucks and spaceship everything beyond
that if you've got a completely
dangerous we had an awesome time in
Australia but it's time to go back to
the cold all in all it was an awesome
event and everyone who participated had
an absolute blast now this is just the
first of many future events so if you're
interested in try and convert a car to
self-driving in 72 hours or less check
out three day robot comm there's a link
in the description below
