December, 2007

This was a great month for the STARMAC project. We implemented a new trajectory tracker and flew it indoors and outdoors, accurately following a preprogrammed path.

This was also a great month for recreation! Katie and I went on another sailing adventure with the "Catastrophe at Sea" crew, this time to desert islands in the Sea of Cortez, off the Baja California peninsula. Jon posted select and complete sets of photos. We left from the port in La Paz, and sailed north to desert islands. We snorkeled, swam with playful sea lions, explored the islands, saw amazing stars, and marvelled at the bioluminescence from plankton [1].

November, 2007
Six autonomous cars finished the DARPA Urban Challenge! Junior won the second place prize. The race was 60 miles of city driving, with nobody in the vehicles or remotely controlling them. The robots drove simultaneously in a simulated urban environment racing against each other, with dozens of professional drivers in the course creating traffic.

October, 2007
Eleven finalists were selected at the DARPA Urban Challenge National Qualification Event. Junior was one of them!

We went to the Micro Aerial Vehicle (MAV) workshop at IROS to present STARMAC, give a demo, and discuss MAV technology. We brought one of the quadrotor helicopters, carry-on, for a lunch-time demo flight in the conference room.

We also put a new ultrasonic ranger on STARMAC this month. This is the sensor that measures how far away the ground is, to control altitude. Now the control system can fly the quadrotor helicopter anywhere from the floor to the ceiling (or higher... when we're outdoors), as shown in the picture.

August, 2007
We traveled to Cambridge, MA. I visited with people at MIT, and toured the labs. I also went to NI Week in Austin, TX. I demoed a STARMAC quadrotor helicopter as part of the keynote presentations on Thursday the 9th.

We went to Hilton Head, SC for the AIAA Guidance, Navigation & Control Conference.

July, 2007
Katie and I traveled to Washington, D.C. and New York City. We met up with our friends and family, and did some massive walking tours of the museums and the monuments. The fireworks were over the Washington Monument--very cool! In New York, we walked from one end of the city to the other, saw a couple shows, and enjoyed the incredible food. After Katie and I were done with our trip, I went to the American Controls Conference.

May, 2007
Katie ran The Relay again this month! It was surprisingly hot, but they made it the whole way.

We went with some friends to Glen Aulin in Yosemite for a quick back packing trip. The hike is through a river valley with waterfall after waterfall. We found a spot to camp near the base of one. The picture shows Tolumne Falls, a fantastic place to relax.

April, 2007
The Aeronautics and Astronautics Department had a poster session.  The posters are all up on the department web page.  I tried to cram all of my work into a single poster....

February, 2007
We got to have lots of fun in the snow this month.  Katie skied and I snowboarded with our friend David Classen, at Kirkwood.  Then the next weekend we went to Tahoe with James, Adella and the Diebel’s.  We went snowboarding at Alpine Meadows, got to try out cross country skiing, and stayed at a beautiful house nearby.

December, 2006
I went to the Conference on Decision and Control in San Diego. Then Katie and I went home to Madison, WI and La Crescent, MN to visit our families for the holidays. Our pictures are posted. Then we went to Florida where we joined the crew of “Catastrophe at Sea XVII”, an annual sailing trip organized by people from the UW’s Hoofer Sailing Club, commemorating a sailing trip gone wrong due to a huge storm. We rented a 50’ Beneteau in Ft Lauderdale and sailed it to the Bimini Islands in the Bahamas, with a group of 9 other people. We sailed, swam, snorkeled, relaxed on beaches, explored the island and the sand flats, and had a great time. Some of our trip pictures are posted.

November, 2006
We had Thanksgiving in Palo Alto this year in our tiny apartment with my parents, my sister, and my Grandma Bette.  It was a ton of fun (pictures)!

October, 2006
We worked pretty hard this month :)  We had a bit of fun carving Jack-O-Lanterns for the first time in awhile though.  We also were visited by some ghosts... :)

August, 2006
I went to the AIAA Guidance Navigation and Control conference in Keystone, Colorado.  Then, Katie and I hiked around the mountain peaks in Summit County and in Rocky Mountain National Park.  One of our best hikes was the combined Torrey’s and Gray’s Peaks hike.  We took lots of pictures of the scenery.

July, 2006
We tried hiking at a more local park, Purisma Creek Redwoods Open Space Preserve.  We were wowed by the sights (and the size of the banana slugs).  We also visited Rebecca down in Marina, CA, and went hiking in Garapata State Park.  This tiny little park was practically empty, and part of the trail was falling apart, but the views and the rocks were incredible.

May, 2006
My family visited.  We went to Carmel Valley (pictures) and did wine tasting.  We also toured the Santa Cruz Mountains, stopping to hike on short trails, like Greyhound Rock and taste wine (pictures).  Then, at the end of the month, Katie, Rebecca and I went to Yosemite to camp and hike (pictures).  We did a loop from Little Yosemite Valley to Glacier Point to Illouette Falls to Nevada Falls to Vernal falls back to the valley again.  We also hiked through the Mariposa grove of GIANT Sequoias.  Very inspiring indeed.

January, 2006
We rented a cabin with James and Adella in north Lake Tahoe, and went snow boarding during the day, and enjoyed the hot tub during heavy snow fall in the evenings (pictures).  Then, later in the month, my dad arrived (driving out again!) with a car for Rebecca.  We went with to visit Rebecca (pictures).

November, 2005
We’re working full-steam ahead on the next generation of quadrotor aircraft.  The parts are coming together to make a 1 kilogram UAV with more computational power than most desktop computers, and a set of brand new sensors so that the robot can think about where it should fly to observe its surroundings.

Katie and I went to celebrate Thanksgiving with my Grandma, Uncle, and his family in Palm Springs and Irvine.  We got to meet our two little cousins for the first time – a couple of cute kids!  It was a great, relaxing weekend.

October, 2005
Five robots finished the DARPA Grand Challenge!  And Stanley won!  It was a very exciting weekend. Katie came with for the show, and we had a fantastic time with all of the teams.  There are lots of pictures and movies of course.

Over the weekend, Katie ran in an insane relay race, “The Relay” from Calistoga to Santa Cruz.  She ran 3 legs totaling 16.3 miles, and did great!

September, 2005
I went to the desert (not by Barstow this time) to do final tweaks to the control system gains, and received an exciting demonstration of the mapping and planning.

The DARPA Grand Challenge is coming up.  The National Qualification Event started on the 28^th.  The Stanford Racing Team’s entry is Stanley.  The 43 teams will be narrowed down to 20 teams.  Then the race will occur on October 8^th.

The National Qualification Event went off without a hitch.  All runs were flawless (no collisions, no straying from the route, and obeying the speed limit) on a couple different courses.  We are 1 of the 23 teams announced for the Grand Challenge Event.  I returned early from the event, but still had a chance to see the other robots compete, and took a couple movies and pictures.  There’s some stiff competition that we’re up against – a huge variety of well engineered vehicles.  Should be a good race!

• Our team website for some good videos made by Sebastian Thrun, the team leader.  
• The NQE results are available, and the same site will have live coverage of the race on Saturday.

August, 2005
I went to Edmonton, Canada for the IROS conference.

July, 2005
We had a relaxing 4^th of July weekend.  We hiked Mission Peak, and watched fireworks from our balcony. At the end of the month, we went to Stinson Beach to celebrate our first anniversary.

June, 2005
Katie graduated and got a great job with Genencor’s Palo Alto facility.  It’s about 3 blocks from our apartment, and was voted the “Best Place to Work in America for 2005”.  She’s pretty excited! The Plzaks and Hoffmanns visited.  We went sailing in Monterey, hiking in Yosemite, and of course, to San Francisco. We went to Barstow to work on the autonomous car’s cruise control and velocity recommender.

March, 2005
I went to Barstow to work on the autonomous car’s steering control and cruise control.  It was a fun, wild ride through deep puddles and around tight turns.

January, 2005
We visited family in Wisconsin and Minnesota.

December, 2004
Went to Huatulco, Mexico for our honeymoon!

November, 2004 Project going even better
We had our first two vehicle flights with our Quadrotor aircraft.

October, 2004 Project going well
We had our first hover flights with our Quadrotor aircraft.

August, 2004 The Plzaks visit
The Plzaks spent their second visit in California.  We got to go to Monterey with them, and spent an awesome day sailing on San Francisco Bay, among other activities.

July 28^th, 2004 Went to Calistoga
After returning to California, we escaped up to the north end of Napa Valley for sun, mineral pools, mud baths, and wine J.

July 25^th, 2004 Just Married :)
Katie and I had a great time with all of our friends and family in Madison, Wisconsin. To view wedding photos, do one of the following:

1. Go to Wedding Photos page.
2. Open Wedding Photos in a new window.
3. Navigate through the Photo Album pages using the directories in the left frame

Gabe Hoffmann