washingtonpost.com Technology: DARPA’s Grand Challenge in the Desert (Macromedia Flash)

The Washington Post has several videos of Team Ensco, a northern Virginia team, building and testing their vehicle. They also have some photos of some of the other vehicles.

Teams Have Been Chosen (pdf file)
The selected teams are listed below in official starting order, based on results
from the QID:

1. (22) Red Team – Pittsburgh, PA
2. (21) SciAutonics II – Thousand Oaks, CA
3. (05) Team Caltech – Pasadena, CA
4. (07) Digital Auto Drive (DAD) – Morgan Hill, CA
5. (25) Virginia Tech – Blacksburg, VA
6. (23) Axion Racing – Westlake Village, CA
7. (02) Team CajunBot – Lafayette, LA
8. (13) Team ENSCO – Falls Church, VA
9. (04) Team CIMAR – Gainesville, FL and Logan, UT
10. (10) Palos Verdes High School RoadWarriors – Palos Verdes Estates, CA
11. (17) SciAutonics I – Thousand Oaks, CA
12. (20) Team TerraMax – Oshkosh, WI
13. (15) Team TerraHawk – Gardena, CA
14. (09) The Golem Group – Santa Monica, CA
15. (16) The Blue Team – Berkeley, CA

Axion Racing, Digital Auto Drive (D.A.D.) and Team TerraMax completely traversed the Qualification, Inspection and Demonstration (QID) course for the first time Thursday.

Thursday (3/11) Grand Challenge Qualifying Results (pdf file)

If you have a big dish, you can watch coverage of the live race Saturday, 3/13. Details are listed below.

Satellite Feed

On Saturday, March 13, DARPA will provide same-day coverage via satellite of the Grand Challenge start and highlights at the following times:

• Live coverage of the start: 6:30 – 8:30 Pacific/9:30 – 11:30 a.m. Eastern
• Video news release: 11:00 – 11:30 a.m. Pacific/2:00 – 2:30 p.m. Eastern
• Coordinates: AMC 9, Ku, Transponder 03, 36 MHz, downlink frequency 11760.000,
  downlink polarity vertical

Video (20s mpg)

3 more teams completed the course – SciAutonics II, Team CalTech, and Virginia Tech.

3/10 Qualifying Results (pdf file)

Here’s the summary of Wednesday’s results:

• SciAutonics II, Team CalTech, and Virginia Tech completed the course.
• Team CIMAR, Team ENSCO, and TerraMax nearly completed the course.
• Axion Racing, Digital Auto Drive, The Golem Group, Palos Verdes High School, Team CajunBot, and TerraHawk partially completed the course.
• The Blue Team, Rover Systems, SciAutonics I, and Team Phantasm dropped out.

3/9 Qualifying Results (pdf file)

Here’s the summary of Tuesday’s Qualifying results of the Darpa Grand Challenge:

• The Red Team completed the course.
• Axion, The Golem, Rover Systems, SciAutonics I, SciAutonics II,
  Team ENSCO, Team Terrahawk and TerraMax all partially completed
  the course before stopping.
• The Blue Team (autonomous motorcycle), Team LoGHIQ and Virginia Tech passed on their
  turns but will take them later in the week.

Cajun Bot – Meet The Robots

The University of Louisiana team (team Cajunbot) has posted some great photos of some of the robots in the Grand Challenge. The photos are definitely worth a look. Virginia Tech is Team 25.

Robot Vehicle Successfully Navigates Test Course

Carnegie Mellon’s Sandstorm is the first vehicle to qualify in the Darpa Grand Challenge.

This article also has additional details about the race. The actual race takes place March 13th. The desert course is 200 miles, and the vehicles must complete the race in less than 10 hours.

Wired News: Now That’s Quite a Challenge

The Darpa Grand Challenge is a robot off-road race across the Mojave Desert that’s sponsored by the Defense Department. The robots must be completely autonomous, and the winner receives a million dollars. The contestants are college students, high school students, tinkerers, and entrepreneurs. The wired article talks about the problems all of the entrants are having while trying to qualify at the California Speedway. I would love to do something like this.