{"id":11150,"date":"2016-10-12T10:08:51","date_gmt":"2016-10-12T17:08:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cafe.foundation\/blog\/?p=11150"},"modified":"2016-10-12T10:08:51","modified_gmt":"2016-10-12T17:08:51","slug":"getting-blood-from-outback-joe-the-2016-outback-challenge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/cafe.foundation\/blog\/getting-blood-from-outback-joe-the-2016-outback-challenge\/","title":{"rendered":"Getting Blood from Outback Joe \u2013 the 2016 Outback Challenge"},"content":{"rendered":"

Outback Joe goes through a lot of trauma in his overstuffed life.\u00a0 This literal straw man gets tossed into some remote part of the Australian outback every year and waits for some kind of rescue.\u00a0 This usually comes by air, drones searching for him and taking him medicine, food, water, or some other necessity. \u00a0That’s the Outback Challenge.<\/p>\n

\"UAV

UAV Challenge teams for 2016, showing a wide (wild) range of configurations<\/p><\/div>\n

One can see a condensed history of the competition from its inception in 2007 to today on Wikipedia<\/a>, the entry including the different kinds of things Outback Joe needed for a mission to be successful.<\/p>\n

This year, however, competitors were supposed to bring back a reminder of their visit to Joe \u2013 a blood sample \u2013 a good trick from an inanimate being who might answer to \u201cHay!\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Outback

Outback Joe in typically relaxed pose, awaiting delivery of life-saving materials. This is from 2014 contest<\/p><\/div>\n

Richard Glassock, now a Research Fellow at the Institute for Aerospace Technology, the University of Nottingham, describes the vision and how it has grown up.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe competition Rod Walker and I first discussed about 16 years ago has matured into something really worthwhile. We ran the first one in 2007, and the most recent event realizes much of the initial vision. Originally I wanted to deliver pizza and beer, but the medical emergency rescue theme is clearly of more immediate value.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to DroneMagazine.com,<\/a> ten teams qualified for the event:<\/p>\n