Project: #429 Equipment for F1Tenth Autonomous Racing Capstone Course Progress Report - Reporting Period Ending: March 31, 2024 Principal Investigator: John Dolan Status: Active Start Date: July 1, 2023 End Date: June 30, 2024 Research Type: None Grant Type: Student Project Course/Capstone Grant Program: US DOT BIL, Safety21, 2023 - 2028 (4811) Grant Cycle: Safety21 : 23-24 Progress Report (Last Updated: March 31, 2024, 4:29 p.m.) % Project Completed to Date: None % Grant Award Expended: None % Match Expended & Document: None USDOT Requirements Accomplishments The major goal of this project was to provide equipment support for the initial offering(s) of the F1Tenth Autonomous Racing Course (16-663) at Carnegie Mellon University in order to give students exposure to the key elements in the autonomous vehicle software stack and experience in intelligent transportation technology. The course was offered for the first time in Fall 2023 with an enrollment of 24, and again in Spring 2024 with an enrollment of 23. In Fall 2023 I was able to borrow 6 F1Tenth RC car platforms from Rahul Mangharam at Penn for use in the course, but after returning these to him at Christmastime, I was able to use the project funds to buy 7 F1Tenth cars that now belong to the CMU course for S24 and future use. The class has engendered excitement in students about intelligent transportation. In F24, several students traveled to Detroit to participate in ICRA 2023 and observe the F1Tenth race competition there. One of the teams in the current S24 offering of the course is planning to participate in the F1Tenth competition at ICRA 2024 in Yokohama, Japan. In the next reporting period, we will use up the remaining ~$1K in the budget to purchase spare parts for the current platforms and support the team planning to compete at ICRA 2024 with guidance and advice. Impacts The project funding helped to expose 47 graduate and undergraduate students have been exposed to the full autonomous vehicle software stack. It generated interest in the F1Tenth racing competition. It enabled the purchase of equipment that will serve as the basis for offering the course in future years. By supporting the course, it enabled students to pursue research projects to extend the state of the art in autonomous racing. It also enabled a final race competition that the entire community can enjoy at the end of each semester that the course is taught. Finally, in semesters when the course is not taught, the platforms can be used by my research lab and others to perform autonomous vehicle experiments and research. Other During the course of preparing to teach the course, I have made several modifications to the F1Tenth curriculum originated at Penn. I am planning to establish a course website soon, before the end of the project period if possible. Outcomes New Partners None. Issues We don't expect any major changes. We have had to modify the bill of materials for the F1Tenth cars somewhat because of supply chain issues and small design changes in the autonomy retrofit for the car.