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Grand Challenge 1, Competitors 0
Ivan writes "According to the DARPA Grand Challenge Status Board, 2 bots were withdrawn before the race started and the remaining 13 were all disabled. Red Team and SciAutonics II tied at 7 miles, a bit short of the 142 miles required." CNN has coverage and interviews.
A guy on a mule has been evading the might and majesty of the United States Army in the Afghan mountains for over two years.
Monster Car do?
They tried and died.
To be fair, they were looking for him in the region of Afghanistan known as Iraq.
Gates' Law: Every 18 months, the speed of software halves.
...how insane does this make the team that entered a motorcycle?
You mean Berkeley?
:)I think that was the idea behind TerraMax - it was a 7 ton Army truck, but even that doesn't work so well when it falls into the Grand Canyon or something similar.
:D
I would have used a 500 foot wide wheel.
Fellowship 9/11
With robots sponsored by Microsoft, IBM, Apple, etc. going head to head, man, that would be awsome to watch!
Microsoft's robot would break down frequently and require human maintenance.
IBM's would work well, but would have an obscurely-shaped fuel system that requires expensive IBM Fuel Cells(tm). The racing team would all be wearing suits.
Apple would produce a shiny, glossy, and reasonably reliable robot that scratched incredibly easily and had bits of the body break off when traveling along. The sound system would be an iPod.
May we never see th
...it was the acid talking
Yes, and the Microsoft machine would be several times the size of any other entry in the race, and be heavily armored in attorneys. Microsoft will claim that it is run by Windows, and would have a fancy Windows XP front-end for reporters to take pictures of that would repeatedly blue-screen during the race. That won't stop it, however, because it will really be controlled by a Linux or FreeBSD system hidden inside. This robotic juggernaut would attempt to send an email virus to random addresses via a satellite link, try to steal the batteries from the other robots along the way, and end up winning by just crushing them under its' treads just before the finish line.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
One might think a brick jammed on the accelerator of a jeep or H2 might have a chance to make it 7 miles.
Not without refueling, of course.
After all, you've got to remember that the world's fastest computers, the really, really big iron out there, still have about as much computational power as your average cockroach.
Not that I would condone such a thing, but, hey, if you're designing delivery systems for the US military, I think you've already lost the moral high ground.
And you got to run before you blast across the Alkali Flats in a jet-powered, monkey-navigated...
"Autonomous fighting machines offer a means to rid a location of its population without any problems with international law."
Really ? There is no international law against using an army of robot warriors to exterminate the entire popuation of a foreign nation ? Why not ?
Well there's my legal loophole. World domination, here I come.
Ceci n'est pas une signature.
Given the fate most of the vehicles experienced, vehicles 20 and 25, who locked up their brakes and started backing up respectively seem to have already developed a sense of self-preservation.