https://driversofsecondlife.blogspot.com/2022/01/dsl-and-grid-drive-history.html
In 2014 Patty Cloquet, a Second Life Cheerleader, created a simple navigation HUD to guide aviators to parties. SLCS (The Second Life Cheerleading Squad) had a monthly events called "Destination Unknown" parties. Party goers would follow the Nav HUD pointer dot from waypoint to waypoint until they reached the hidden party. The HUD was very simple, could only handle one leg and do nothing more than point one from waypoint to waypoint.
The "Destination Unknown" parties while a huge success, didn't last long and was soon forgotten. The Nav HUD was then lightly used over the next few years to help teach new pilots routes from one airport to another, but had no beeps, bells, voices, turn signs or anything, just a dot pointing you in a direction.
In October of 2017, Christi Charron decided to start a driving group, where anyone could post group drives using their own maps or navigation HUD brands and every member was allowed to post a notice doing so.
Christi decided to create her own drive using the old Nav HUD Patty had created for aviation years earlier since nobody was posting drives as she had hoped, and posted it in the group.
Not many were notified about the drive but over 20 people showed up to the first one, surprising everyone and showing there was a clear need for organized drives SL.
Christi then began planning simple, weekly drives, leading from point A to B only. Spurred on by the excitement of her HUD being put to good use, Patty began working endless hours improving the Nav HUD, making it indicate when a turn or region corner was approaching, and adding voice to it. The additions were a huge success and the group began to grow quickly!
Soon, it was apparent more was needed to keep people's interests high and Christi had always had an idea of using the entire Grid as the setting for a game or experience, but never could figure out how. One drive on Nautilus was made where one went from point A to B, then drivers received a second HUD upon arrival they would then use, taking them on Leg 2.
When Patty saw this being done she quickly modified the Nav HUD to handle multiple Legs within one HUD, and at the same time it was decided the HUD could and should detect people doing things at drive stops, forcing them to enter stores and such, to give them a reason for driving from point A to B, then C to D. The next week, the Navigation HUD had it's first interactive drive stop, forcing drivers at the end of the drive to enter a Gas Station owned by Driver Davedorm Gaffer, wash their hands in the sink, then exit the store to complete the drive.
Once Drivers and Creators saw this in action, they then knew almost every stop needed some sort of interaction, Patty and Christi worked very hard to come up with Nav HUD changes that allowed for detection of avatar interactions in world, and to react to them.
Over the next year, Patty worked endless hours improving the Nav HUD as things that were needed weekly became evident, and it has tremendous flexibility allowing one to create complex drives in a few days time that would take weeks to script from scratch.
It is this reason that we have the ability to create basically a weekly video game mission similar to today's popular sandbox style games outside of SL.
As Patty has unfortunately left SL permanently, we miss her and wish her well.
Progress still continues on improving the Nav HUD and each week the Drivers Group tries to show it's members something new in SL they haven't seen before, and usually tries to impress them by having the HUD do something new each and every week that they didn't realize was possible.
