Eleven Finalists in Pentagon's Robotic Rally

An anonymous reader writes "A mere 11 driverless vehicles — not the 20 originally planned — will compete in this weekend's $3.5 million all-robot street rally, hosted by the Pentagon. After a series of crashes, dangerous turns, and aimless wanderings off of the course, the rest of the robo-cars in the "Urban Challenge" were deemed unsafe to compete."

Comments

Drivers' tests and Pentagon competitions

[BadAnalogyGuy]

It seems totally out of whack that they'd disqualify entries that wandered all over the track, went the wrong direction down roads, crashed into multiple objects, and generally were a menace on the road.

After all, they still let women drive.

Re:Drivers' tests and Pentagon competitions

[BadAnalogyGuy]

Best thing about teenage girls, though: I get older, they stay the same age.

Re:Drivers' tests and Pentagon competitions

[Intron]

"It seems totally out of whack that they'd disqualify entries that wandered all over the track, went the wrong direction down roads, crashed into multiple objects, and generally were a menace on the road."

True. They could have just moved the competition to downtown Boston.

Next challenge

[WPIDalamar]

"It would be terrible for one bot to take out another"

So when is that event scheduled, and will it be on pay per view?

GPS + Humans are not better

[elh_inny]

I agree that they were too restrictive.

Seeing the vidoes on YouTube like these:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bh-B3rysxIA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7La09EBLf-Q

or stories about people driving into lakes and flooded roads "because GPS told them to"

man who went to the back of his RV while still on the highway to have some coffee, when he crashed, he sued the company for not stating in the manual that "the car does not turn by itself"

truck driver who drove his lorry into a river, not knowing that the bridge he intended to use was no longer there

etc

I'd say pass the control to the machines as soon as possible....

I miss read that to be "Elvin Finalists"...

[An anonymous reader]

I was thinking, "Cool! This is as close as we are going to get to: Ninjas vs. Robots." I need more coffee. ;-)

And then I saw this

[BadAnalogyGuy]

Words cannot describe...

Good enough for government work!

[Rob T Firefly]

After a series of crashes, dangerous turns, and aimless wanderings off of the course I don't understand why the Pentagon didn't hire those robots on the spot.