We have just completed the first day of the 2017 Airborne Delivery Challenge at Calvert, Queensland. The flying field, the weather and the teams were almost perfect today. We have ten teams competing for the first prize of $5,000. The teams attending are from Australia, USA, Malaysia and Poland.

Queensland Acting Chief Scientist Dr Christine Williams talking to students

We were privileged to have the Queensland Acting Chief Scientist, Dr Christine Williams open the event. The Queensland Government this year are naming sponsors of the Airborne Delivery Challenge. Our other sponsors are Boeing, Insitu Pacific, Northrop Grumman, Lockheed Martin, Defence Science and Technology (DST) Group, and the Mathworks. And the event is co-organised by CSIRO | Data 61 and QUT | The Australian Centre for Robotic Vision.

The day started for teams with their presentations to our four great judges. The judges reported that the standard of presentations this year was excellent. The teams were then scrutineered by the UAV Challenge scrutineering team and showed off their flying and safety skills over the competition course. The scores at this stage are quite close and there is everything to fly for tomorrow.

The progress scores at the end of Day 1

We will see teams for an 8.00am briefing tomorrow morning and then the flying competition will begin!