2007 DARPA Urban Grand Challenge winds up
click above image for more pics from the 2007 DARPA Urban Grand Challenge
Route 66 passes right through Victorville, California, which is also home to the Route 66 Museum. Much breathless prose has been expended on the joys of piloting your buggy down the Great Diagonal Way. Antithetical to getting your kicks on Route 66 is the DARPA Urban Grand Challenge, hosted by Victorville. The contest, with a $2 million dollar, prize saw 11 teams send off driverless cars with a couple pats on the bumper and the admonishment to write home if they got work. Past DARPA Challenge winner Stanford got its car across the finish line first, with teams from Carnegie Mellon and Virginia Tech also managing to squeak across in the allotted six hours. Cornell and MIT-based teams were over the time limit, and a couple of teams had their vehicles lose their minds or crack into each other. In all, the contest was far more successful than the initial running in 2004, when nobody finished. The winner will be announced later today and be crowned based on speed as well as safety through the 60-mile course. Autoblog editor emeritus John McElroy was in attendance and will have his report for us on the DARPA Urban Grand Challenge later in the week.
[Source: Reuters, photos by STRINGER/Getty]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
naggs 1:35PM (11/04/2007)
this stuff is super interesting, a full write up would be awesome, video and pics too!
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Rafa 1:50PM (11/04/2007)
Couldn´t agree more!
Alex K 2:25PM (11/04/2007)
Anyone know if/when it will air?
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naggs 4:46PM (11/04/2007)
for the grand challenge, there was a great NOVA on it
i don't know if they are planning to do another on the urban challenge but I would expect something to turn up. pop culture loves autonmous robots espically when one of the competators is named Skynet!
mr2hokies 3:04PM (11/04/2007)
Here's the blog of Team Victor Tango (Virginia Tech) with some videos along the way...
http://teamvictortango.blogspot.com/
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Buckus 3:08PM (11/04/2007)
With the rapid pace in technology and application to this challenge, it should only be a few more years before these things are driving like people and a 60 mile challenge will be completed in 60 minutes.
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Huecifer 11:17PM (11/04/2007)
Carnegie Mellon actually started the race 30 minutes behind Stanford, and finished 1 minute behind them... tsk tsk, Autoblog.
And, with the scoring caculated, the results were Boss(CMU) #1, Junior (Stanford) #2, Odin (VT) #3.
Big up to my alma mater!
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UPenn fan 1:16AM (11/05/2007)
Of the 6 finishers, don't forget the University of Pennsylvania's entry, Little Ben (the Ben Franklin racing team was named after the school's founder . . .)
This team was the only finisher who did not receive DARPA's $1 million start-up grant. They bought a compact car, outfitted it with 6 sensors, 1 camera, a GPS system and 6 Mac-minis for $200,000. The fact that this car crossed the finish line was truly an amazing accomplishment!
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