Talk:European Land-Robot Trial

Being one of the organisers of the ELROB2006 I can definitely say that there have been no official applications of ANY non-European team to ELROB 2006. If someone would like to argue the converse, I would suggest that he/she presents the original TeamApplication and the official reaction of the ELROB organisers. Citing Internet news pages proves nothing since it is based on hearsay (or enven worse), or is there any article that is written by accredited press? Kind regards Frank E. Schneider

I'm a member of the Stanford Racing Team and I can definitely say that we were not allowed to participate in ELROB 2006. The only reason why Mr. Schneider claims there was "no official application" received is that, unless the DARPA Grand Challenge, ELROB is not open for everybody to send applications. The ELROB Rules specify that it is invitation-only and prior to sending in an application, contestants have to ask for such an invitation. We inquired via email and were denied based on the ground that only European-lead teams are allowed. We followed up stating that we have a European Team Lead (in fact, he is known by the organisers), and the ELROB organisers acknowledged that but still refused to send an invitation.

We have actual email exchange as evidence for this, but I believe the article available in Technology Review should be sufficient to include reference to this business practice on Wikipedia. Technology Review is a respectable M.I.T. print publication and Dr. Thrun as director of the Stanford Artificial Intelligence lab has enough reputation to loose to be truthful about such issues while talking to journalists.

Please also note that my goal is not to criticize the ELROB idea or its contestants, and neither to compare it to the DARPA Grand Challenge, although I believe such a comparison would favor the Grand Challenge. Instead, I believe that competitions like both ELROB and the Grand Challenge are extremely valuable in driving the robotic community and promoting research. A necessary condition for success in this goal, however, is openness for everybody to compete. The Grand Challenge did permit foreign teams, and multiple entities from Germany, France, New Zealand and Canada actually participated. The ELROB rules also allowed foreign teams, but the practices employed by the organizers did not enable teams to participate. This is the single point about the competition that I criticize and I hope that making this public on Wikipedia will encourage them to conduct their challenge more openly next time.

I urge Mr. Schneider to accept my wording of the issue or to propose one that is equivalent in content. Otherwise, my understanding of the Wikipedia NPOV is that we would have to include a separate section "Criticism of ELROB" that presents the two different points of view, possibly including the email exchange. This would be embarassing and would put this issue more into the spotlight, something I believe neither party wants. Again, we are a big supporter of competitions like ELROB or the Grand Challenge - we actually wanted to participate in ELROB.

Kind Regards, Hendrik Dahlkamp

PS: If Mr. Schneider agrees, I would like to remove this discussion section after mediation is complete. People that come to the ELROB or Grand Challenge pages want to learn about robots and the competition and should not be distracted by this discussion.

Dear Mr. Dahlkamp,

first we would like to thank you for your factual comments. By looking at other utterances it is good to see that some people can handle such things professional and unemotional.

Regarding the general subscription to ELROB: We do not share your interpretation of the subscription process (which is no surprise isn’t it :-). Everybody could send a filled-in TeamApplication form! Please look carefully at the section “How to Attend“ on the Website. There is no sentence that restricts the subscription process. Maybe you refer to “express your interest in attending the event” when saying “prior to sending in an application, contestants have to ask for such an invitation.” This is not what we meant and not how we handled it. A final notification about the acceptance was given in step “11. Notification” AFTER all other steps were completed. Regarding the attempt of Stanford to participate in ELROB: We are (of course) aware of the email conversation. Again our interpretation differs from ours. There is no email in this conversation that denies the participation with a European team leader or the continuation of the subscription process. Please refer to the email with subject “Re: Antwort: Re: Invitation to Elrob 06” from the 23.09.2005 at 07:02. If you don’t have it in its original form we are happy to send you a copy of it. From our point of view this email shows that we confirmed Stanford’s interpretation that your team can participate in ELROB when having a European team leader. We completely agree on the fact that this discussion is not very useful for events like DARPA GC or ELROB. So if you have a different email or different interpretations feel free to send me a private email citing and commenting the corresponding phrases. If that doesn’t help we still can publish the email conversation (without names of course) so that everyone can see for himself. Please do not “urge” me ;-) This is not a matter of convincing somebody it is a matter of sticking to the facts. But we agree that there might be different interpretations. A first step to a common accord could be not to generalise. Your phrase suggested that other teams beside Stanford had problem with the subscription which in fact is not true. Fact is that there have been problems in the subscription process of Stanford. Because of that Stanford did not participate in ELROB. So based on your interpretation and the facts you could write that Stanford was the only team that was rejected (which is not our point of view!). Regarding your PS. Well, who is going to remove all those sad interviews? Kind regards Frank E. Schneider Dear Ideogram,

I am not sure!? We have no response so far....

Schneid1 13:02, 24 June 2006 (UTC)


 * Let's give it a couple more days. Ideogram 17:06, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

Mediation
Hi, I am Adam and I have taken this case. The details of the request for mediation are at 2006-06-16 ELROB 2006.

During this mediation please refrain from editing the article. Please be sure to read WP:Verifiability. Ideogram 06:52, 17 June 2006 (UTC) Re: the article in Technology Review -- this article merely quotes Sebastian Thrun's opinion that he was denied access, without any evidence that the reporter investigated and tried to verify his claims. This article is not really verification of your position.

As for removing an exchange from the talk page, this is not Wikipedia policy; we prefer all discussion remain public. Ideogram 14:03, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

PS If you wish your discussion to remain private, I suggest you take it to email. I will not be able to mediate such an exchange, of course. Ideogram 14:04, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

Hi guys, are my services still required here? If not, I'll close the case. Ideogram 04:54, 24 June 2006 (UTC)


 * I'm going to close the case. If the issue arises again, you can leave me a note on my talk page.  Ideogram 13:08, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

Hi. I was one of the team leaders in the DARPA Grand Challenge (I ran Team Overbot; we lost), and I'm a Stanford alum, so I have some familiarity with the issue.

The DARPA Grand Challenge required an American citizen as team leader (2005 Grand Challenge rules). ''The team leader must be at least 21 years of age and must hold US citizenship on the date of application to the Grand Challenge, and must remain a citizen for the duration of the Grand Challenge. Proof of US Citizenship for the team leader must be provided with the application as described in the application instructions. DARPA representatives will verify these documents at the site visit.'' DARPA actually checked passports; I had to present mine at our site visit. Sebastian Thrun was the leader of Stanford's team.

Given that history, it's not surprising that the Stanford team couldn't claim "European leadership", as required for ELROB.

There was some discussion about this within the Grand Challenge community. Thrun was, I think, in the process of becoming a US citizen, and some questions were raised. Early on, Mike Montemerlo was listed as team leader to get around this problem, but later, Thrun was listed. That issue was resolved before the actual event; I think that Thrun became a US citizen in time.

Anything else needed here? --John Nagle 18:31, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

Robot Cars of Dickmanns
This may be relevant for the broader context of ELROB. More than ten years ago a fast vision-guided autonomous Mercedes robot programmed by the team of Ernst Dickmanns, the pioneer of robot cars, already performed amazing feats. I was surprised that I could not find a decent Wikipedia article about Dickmanns, and wrote a first draft. Improvements welcome. ERDI 21:02, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for Image:Elrob2006 ex3.jpg
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Fair use rationale for Image:Elrob2006 ex2.jpg
Image:Elrob2006 ex2.jpg is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in Wikipedia articles constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

Please go to the image description page and edit it to include a fair use rationale. Using one of the templates at Fair use rationale guideline is an easy way to insure that your image is in compliance with Wikipedia policy, but remember that you must complete the template. Do not simply insert a blank template on an image page.

If there is other other fair use media, consider checking that you have specified the fair use rationale on the other images used on this page. Note that any fair use images uploaded after 4 May, 2006, and lacking such an explanation will be deleted one week after they have been uploaded, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you.BetacommandBot 04:48, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for Image:Elrob2006 ex1.jpg
Image:Elrob2006 ex1.jpg is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in Wikipedia articles constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

Please go to the image description page and edit it to include a fair use rationale. Using one of the templates at Fair use rationale guideline is an easy way to insure that your image is in compliance with Wikipedia policy, but remember that you must complete the template. Do not simply insert a blank template on an image page.

If there is other other fair use media, consider checking that you have specified the fair use rationale on the other images used on this page. Note that any fair use images uploaded after 4 May, 2006, and lacking such an explanation will be deleted one week after they have been uploaded, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you.BetacommandBot 04:48, 3 June 2007 (UTC)