DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) has just kicked off 2005’s Grand Challenge. The Grand Challenge is a government sponsored race by autonomous vehicles (i.e. robots) to help further research and technology in the field. The winner gets this year gets $2 million. Last year, no one claimed the $1 million prize as not a single team came close to finishing the 144-mile race.
So far, only seimfinals are being held at the California Speedway in Fontana, CA. This will whittle the field down to 20 contestants out of a total of 43 semifinalists. If you’d like to check on the finals in real-time, you can go to the Grand Challenge website where they will have maps and updates starting Oct 8.