It is too harsh to call it a failure. After watching many hours of video footage, I would judge it most certainly NOT a failure, but a good first step. Yes, many robots fell down. Yes, it would be nice to make a requirement for them to get up -- and at least one did in the *competition*, if i recall correctly. The tiny robot an Asian student was *demonstrating* (he didn't speak much English) got up amazingly fast since he designed it in.
It is understandable that DARPA reduced the difficulty in this first baby step of the competition. What would you rather have, (a) very difficult tasks so that no team can complete all tasks, or (b) difficult enough so not *all* teams can complete all tasks, but some can? I'd choose (b) every time, since it results in encouragement to take the next step in the development. There are many other benefits if you think about it for a minute or two.
Give the guy a break. He's not talking *for* DARPA since he's a consultant, and is asking for ideas that he might miss by doing traditional searching - which is a completely valid point, especially in the leading edge fields DARPA deals with. I have come across, more than once, work of significance at unexpected places - even though it was before the Internet because very popular. There may still be isolated instances of interesting and useful work done - the isolation being unintentional, intentional or strong or weak.
Slashdot is a wonderful site for tech news. I am always impressed with the quality of the audience (especially on the high rated comments), and it is wonderful to see "famous" people answer/address questions -- that doesn't happen a lot in other places.
Thank you for starting the site and putting up with all it takes to maintain it.
Once in a while I post using my real name, this is one of those times.
Slashdot Mirror
It is too harsh to call it a failure. After watching many hours of video footage, I would judge it most certainly NOT a failure, but a good first step. Yes, many robots fell down. Yes, it would be nice to make a requirement for them to get up -- and at least one did in the *competition*, if i recall correctly. The tiny robot an Asian student was *demonstrating* (he didn't speak much English) got up amazingly fast since he designed it in.
It is understandable that DARPA reduced the difficulty in this first baby step of the competition. What would you rather have, (a) very difficult tasks so that no team can complete all tasks, or (b) difficult enough so not *all* teams can complete all tasks, but some can? I'd choose (b) every time, since it results in encouragement to take the next step in the development. There are many other benefits if you think about it for a minute or two.
Give the guy a break. He's not talking *for* DARPA since he's a consultant, and is asking for ideas that he might miss by doing traditional searching - which is a completely valid point, especially in the leading edge fields DARPA deals with. I have come across, more than once, work of significance at unexpected places - even though it was before the Internet because very popular. There may still be isolated instances of interesting and useful work done - the isolation being unintentional, intentional or strong or weak.
Slashdot is a wonderful site for tech news. I am always impressed with the quality of the audience (especially on the high rated comments), and it is wonderful to see "famous" people answer/address questions -- that doesn't happen a lot in other places.
Thank you for starting the site and putting up with all it takes to maintain it.
Once in a while I post using my real name, this is one of those times.
Sethu Rathinam