45Fix Sponsors DARPA Grand Challenge Contenders Team Jefferson Featuring “Tommy Junior”

November 29, 2006 (Press Release) -- A world where home improvement projects always go smoothly and cars drive themselves? It’s all in a day’s work for Charlottesville entrepreneurs. Local remodeling experts 45Fix, known for delivering reliable contractors and start-to-finish service, are the latest proud sponsors of Team Jefferson. The local robotics team, including members from Perrone Robotics and the University of Virginia, is also concerned with reliability and making it smoothly to the finish line, in their case of the upcoming DARPA Urban Challenge race. This contest, sponsored by an arm of the pentagon, holds out a cash prize of $2 million for the team whose robot successfully completes a 60-mile urban course negotiating urban streets including merging with traffic and parallel parking – oh yes, and all without any humans in the vehicle or controlling it at all. This isn’t the first time that Team Jefferson has set their sites on a DARPA prize. They successfully made it to the semifinals of the historic 2005 DARPA Grand Challenge race across the Mohave desert. “It’s great to have 45Fix onboard as a sponsor. I can’t put into words how important it is to the team to have the support of local organizations such as 45Fix. It makes our drive to make the hometown proud all the much greater,” says Team Lead Paul Perrone. “What’s more, we also end up supporting each other. Perrone Robotics in fact leveraged 45Fix’s services in rapidly and reliably having improvements made to our robotics workshop in Crozet.” 45Fix joins existing sponsors including Sun Microsystems and Fair Isaac. For information on how you can participate, contact Paul Perrone at dgc@perronerobotics.com or (434) 823-2833.