IST/ISR returned to the 1997 edition of the Festival des Sciences et Technologies, held at Carquefou, France. Three IST final year undergraduate students (José Miguel Santos, Paulo Silva and Miguel Pinto) carried out the development work. The team was supervised by IST Professors Pedro Lima and Carlos Cardeira
We reached the finals (4 teams in an initial number of 16) and got the 1st place in the industrial design contest. The prize was awarded by a jury composed by 50% from members of the industry and 50% from members of the academia.
Check also our participation in the grand-final among the best teams of the 1997 edition, in the Festival Internacional da Ciência e Tecnologia, held at Loures, Portugal, in September 1997.
The project was sponsored by JNICT, EDP, Alcatel, Celcat, Auto Europa and IST (including the Mechanical and the Electrical Engineering and Computers departments). The 1997 vehicle evolved from the modular platform Barbaneta, developed for last year edition of the competition.
To cope with the relatively high speed requirements (above 1 m/s), and the considerable weight of the vehicle (50 Kg) we used two 12 V, 1750 rpm, 2 Nm Pacific-Scientific DC motors.
The camera & mirror system in the image are used both to determine the distance and relative orientation between the vehicle and the track ("seen" by the mirror), and to determine the track resuming point, by looking under the mirror.
This system was the main reason the prize awarded by the jury, due to its innovative concept. Actually, it has just been
patented in the Boletim da Propriedade Industrial No. 8/1999 of 30 Nov 99, of the Portuguese organization INPI.
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