Project: #559 Equipment for F1Tenth Autonomous Racing Capstone Course Progress Report - Reporting Period Ending: April 1, 2025 Principal Investigator: John Dolan Status: Overdue Project Start Date: July 1, 2024 End Date: June 30, 2025 Research Type: None Grant Type: Student Project Course/Capstone Grant Program: US DOT BIL, Safety21, 2023 - 2028 (4811) Grant Cycle: Safety21 : 24-25 Progress Report (Last Updated: July 29, 2025, 11:26 p.m.) % Project Completed to Date: None % Grant Award Expended: None % Match Expended & Document: None USDOT Requirements Accomplishments The major goal of this project is to provide equipment support for 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, in Spring 2024 with an enrollment of 23, and in Spring 2025 with an enrollment of 14. In the current funding period I have used the project funds to buy 4 F1Tenth cars that now belong to the CMU course for S25 and future use. The class has engendered excitement in students about intelligent transportation. The current class is planning to participate in a multi-university Race Day at the University of Pennsylvania on May 5, 2025. In the next reporting period, we will use up the remaining budget to purchase additional platforms and spare parts for the course and to fund the trip to the Penn Race Day. Impacts The funding supported the F1Tenth racing demonstrations that we did at both the November 2024 Safety21 Symposium and the January 2025 CMU site visit by Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg. It helped to expose 14 graduate and undergraduate students 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 enabled a final race competition that the entire community can enjoy at the end of each semester that the course is taught. It will fund a trip to the multi-university Race Day at the University of Pennsylvania. 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 also planning to establish a course website soon. 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.