|  | | | | | Field Trials | |
The real development on Groundhog occured around each experiment or field trial. The push to integrate all of the new components, watching what works and what fails in the field, and coming back to the shop, tired, cold, and exhausted to rework those parts that failed, that's what made Groundhog what it is today.
Bruceton, Take 1
Groundhog makes its first public appearance as a fully electric vehicle, but doesn't do too well in its first mine, the Bruceton Safety mine.Tridelphia
The integration of Groundhog as a hydraulic, almost explosion proof vehicle occurs during a record fifty hour marathon. Loading Groundhog onto the flatbed truck is the first computer controlled operation that Groundhog performs.The Highbay
The first demonstration of Groundhog's mapping capabilites occurs in the RI Highbay. Groundhog is controlled through a fiber-optic tether with wireless slipring for the first and last time.Florence Mine Rehersal
Groundhog goes on its first real field mission. The map is suberb, and the team gets luck when an electrical short leads to the unanticapated and uncontrolled autonomous return of Groundhog to the mine entrance.Florence Mine Live!
Groundhog returns to the Florence mine two days later and broadcasts live images of its entry into the abandoned mine via satellite to a mining symbosium in Charleston, West Virginia.Bruceton, Take 2 & 3
Groundhog returns to Bruceton for some endurance trials and completes its longest mine mapping runs ever. | |
| |
|
