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Desert Robot Race Update, With Video

Posted by timothy on from the mmm-mpeg dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Several teams have moved forward with their bid to run the Barstow-Vegas Desert Robot Race (For those not familiar check out http://www.darpa.mil/grandchallenge ). As of today 55 teams are registered, some of the most interesting are Cal Tech, AI Magic, and the Red Team out of Carnegie Mellon. Also fishing around the Red Team site, there is a pretty nifty video."

3 of 180 comments (clear)

  1. race vs challenge by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

    from the darpa site's Q&A : "...And they must do these things quickly- overall speed will be the deciding factor and the time limit is designed to push vehicle speeds far beyond current technologies."

    this makes it seem like the focus is more on speed that on being able to navigate by oneself. if you're making a race, call it a race, dont call it a challenge, a challenge should have prizes for anyone who can do it. i find this very misleading, anyone have any thoughts on this? how about starting a petition to change the name!

    consolevision roxors

  2. Re:Interesting project which can save some lives by Skyshadow · · Score: 5, Interesting
    Or you could have it roll into a network of caves and shoot the people inside without exposing your own guys to risk.

    Or you could send it over to an enemy location and transmit a "bomb me" signal to the smart bombs to hit.

    Or you could have it crawl in and set fire to a compound where a bunch of religious extremists are held up.

    Or you could use it to wait in a ditch for a month until the car of a political leader rolls by and blow it up.

    These aren't all necessarily *bad* things -- it's always been reality that we kill each other, sometimes with good reason. But it *is* another step away from the old days when you'd have to risk your own life to kill another person, which IMO makes it a lot easier to do.

    --
    Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
  3. the mpeg - my first slashdotting by Mockingbird · · Score: 4, Interesting

    So I get a call from one of my client's ISPs. Some guy named Charles is really alarmed about the massive amount of traffic my sleepy little robot site is generating all of a sudden.

    Woohoo, my first Slashdotting!

    So naturally the ISP temporarily banished the file. Thanks to everyone who put up mirrors. The file ought to be back where it belongs on 9/10.

    Unrelated to the file, these guys at CMU kick ass. Despite all the DARPA downplaying that they don't exepect anyone to even complete the race in the first year, I have tremendous confidence in the Red Team to overachieve. There's a 'success at any cost' vibe coming out of that place that has to be experienced to be believed.