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Ivan writes "According to the DARPA Grand Challenge Status Board, 2 bots were withdrawn before the race started and the remaining 13 were all disabled.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.

Comments

Rough terrain's a bitch

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Rough terrain's a bitch

[monster811]

And somehow he is dragging a dialysis machine with him...

Re:Rough terrain's a bitch

[Cruciform]

Osama bin Laden captured by Aibo. News at 11. :)

They tried and failed?

[albeit unknown]

They tried and died.

Not _all_ that impressive

[Imperator]

To be fair, they were looking for him in the region of Afghanistan known as Iraq.

So considering no vehicle made it past 7 miles...

[ikewillis]

...how insane does this make the team that entered a motorcycle?

Re:Brick on the Accelerator

[ljavelin]

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.

midget drivers, eh?

[squidgyhead]

You know, that gives me an idea. Would it count if you were to train some animal to drive this thing? Would "monkey-controlled" be close enough to "autonomous"? I bet you could get a monkey behind the wheel of a 4x4, train him, hook him up to enough drugs and electrodes to get him to drive the thing.

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.