RUSS CARMACK | THE NEWS TRIBUNE
Prodigious Young Talents
DEBBY ABE; The News Tribune
The competition is tough and the challenge even tougher: build a computer-controlled all-terrain vehicle that can negotiate a rugged course through the Mojave Desert.
Yet three Puget Sound teens gripped by the spirit of ingenuity won't let themselves be intimidated.
They hope to enter the DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) Grand Challenge, a race in March for unmanned all-terrain vehicles that stretches more than 200 miles from Los Angeles to Las Vegas through the perilous Mojave Desert.
The winner must complete the race in 10 hours or less.
Sponsored by the U.S. Department of Defense, the competition features a winner-take-all purse of $1 million. Officials in DARPA, the military's research and development organization, hope to inspire creation of a robotic ground vehicle that soldiers could use for reconnaissance and surveillance.
This morning, DARPA representatives are scheduled to descend on a Tacoma residential garage to inspect the vehicle being built by 14-year-old robotics enthusiast Nicholas Hoza and two junkyard warriors, Chris Medrzycki and Nick McCarty. They call themselves "The Prodigies."
DARPA already has invited 19 teams to participate in a qualifying inspection and demonstration event before the race, a DARPA spokeswoman said Monday. The agency is visiting 18 more teams, including The Prodigies, to choose six more competitors for the qualification round.
Medrzycki said the team won't find out whether they've made it into the race until DARPA representatives have had a chance to visit all the other teams.
The Puget Sound teens already have survived the first level of elimination, which started with 108 teams.
"It would be nice to get the million dollars," said 19-year-old Medrzycki, a Bellarmine Prep graduate. "We'll be realistic and say our goal is to finish the race. If we can win, that's a benefit."
Nicholas, an eighth-grader at Saint Michael School in Olympia, is team captain and the one who asked Medrzycki to build the vehicle.
"I found it on the Internet," Nicholas said of the contest. "I just thought it was really cool and would be a fun thing to do cause it's so challenging."
He's also Medrzycki's cousin. Medrzycki describes Nicholas as a bright, "all-around smart kid" who's taking an introductory engineering course at Saint Martin's College in Lacey.
"He's been into robotics for years. He said he was absolutely positive he could get his part done," Medrzycki said. "I said, 'I know I can build the vehicle.'"
Medrzycki, whose favorite TV shows are "Junkyard Mega-Wars" and "Monster Garage," has been restoring and rebuilding cars, scooters and other mechanical objects for years, including his custom-designed 1968 square-back Volkswagen bug.
He got his friend, McCarty, to participate. They both attend Seattle University.
The three have been designing and constructing their "autonomous ground vehicle" since January. "The Expeditor," as they call it, should be able to handle terrain that the average pickup truck could navigate, Medrzycki said.
Its design is based on a sandrail, off-road dune buggy and a four-wheel all-terrain vehicle. Five feet long, 2 1/2 feet tall, and 4 feet wide, The Expeditor is made of 3/4-inch square steel tubing and powered by a 230 cc all-terrain vehicle gas engine.
Unlike teams from Carnegie Mellon University and the California Institute of Technology, Medrzycki says The Prodigies' project is a shoestring operation, with a budget of less than $1,000 so far. The teens bought a Suzuki all-terrain vehicle, used what parts they could and sold the rest on eBay to get money for other needed parts.
Will it work?
"Nothing's for sure as of yet," Medrzycki said. "It's like building anything: 'til you test it, you don't know. You hopefully design it well enough. We're in the build phase."
Debby Abe: 253-597-8694
debby.abe@mail.tribnet.com
On the Net
To learn more about the DARPA Grand Challenge, check out www.darpa.mil/grandchallenge
(Published 12:01AM, December 2nd, 2003)