The first year of the DARPA Challenge race was held a few days ago and as expected, except by journalists, no one completed the 142 mile course. The prize of $1 Million will go to the first team to make it to the finish line. What makes this special is the vehicle must drive itself, off road, for 142 miles… with no human intervention. This is so far beyond the current state of the art it hardly bears discussion. The prize, while large, will not even cover the costs of one contestant for one year. They are out for the Challenge of doing something which ‘cannot be done’. The possibility of recognition gives them the excuse to do it… and helps win sponsorships.
Now, as to the home team… Regular readers doubtless know I am a Carnegie-Mellon engineer and that I spent a good chunk of my life in and around the place for one reason or another. In particular, I was a staff member of the Robotics Institute for awhile, so I must admit to a desire to cheer when I discovered the computerized Humvee of the Red Team of Dr Red Whitaker travelled the furthest (7 miles) of all but one of this years contestants. Only SciAutonics II managed the same distance.
If you look more closely at the times you will notice rather less equality in the performances. Red Team travelled the seven miles in about 40 minutes or so while SciAutonics II required two hours more. Seven miles in 40 minutes may be a bit slow, but seven miles in in two hours and forty minutes is positively glacial.
The race will be held again in one year and I predict we will see spectacular technical advances in autonomous robotics and a winner before the end of the contest in 2007.
CMU will win the prize of course.
sorry i may be missing the point of this site.. but what has this got to do with killing communists?
Yes, you are missing the point of the site. We cover sports, screen, stage, music, books, lifestyle, science and technology, defense, foreign affairs and policy, libertarian philosophy, current events. Anything that interests us or strikes our fancy really.
We are not a bunch of ideological bores here at Samizdata. We are full blown, three dimensional people who have real lives and interests and who exist in a real world. We may not like it as it is and we certainly let you know about it, we may have a bit of fun with it on occasion… but we exist within and deal with reality as we find it.
Why just last week I was in my local pub chatting away with musician friends… and didn’t say libertarian once the whole night.
If I ever get enough money in the bank, I might even go off and do a ski report some winter…
One thing I love about Samizdata is that I get to read stories like this *without* the accompanying left-ist meta-context found almost everywhere else. For example, if one of these robotic cars had run somebody over, do doubt any other coverage of the event would be full of talk about government action to improve safety and simlilar such nonsense…
ah okay. understood.
could you direct me to where i can find other people who do want to kill commies.
as i believe in action, not bitching.
There’s another competition with a similar theme, but with the twist that the vehicle has to fly: AUVSI Aerial Robotics Competition.
The winning vehicle must
1. Fly three kilometers along a specified path
2. Search a target area for a marked building, and identify the openings and their centers
3. Enter the building and document its interior.
All this has to be done completely autonomously, with no control or other input from the ground.
I don’t think anyone’s got close yet, although the team from my alma mater hopes to have a vehicle that can do all this within the next 2-3 years.
I wish the race site would post more info. I love the concept. My suggestion early on has drawn no response – I suggested that some transducer be epoxied to all desert tourtises to help vehicles avoid them.
Dale,
Just a correction on your time taken to travel 7 miles by the Red team in your link. These are the Update times, not travel time. I, as a sad person, watched these stats live. These times do not correspond to ‘time to travel distance’, but when the data server was last updated.
Dale,
Does the CMU connection mean you are a fan of Stack Machines?
Dale,
Evolution Robotics Ships Ersp 3.0 – Next Generation of the Robotic Development Platform with Breakthrough Navigation and Vision Technologies
Gald to see you back, Dale. I’ve been missing your informed commentary on this sort of important & interesting stuff. I’d love to see more detail from you about where you see the biggest gaps and challenges between the current state of the art and the DARPA challenge.
I fully expect this sort of thing to result in breakthroughs that will lead to exponential progress
er.. what about my communists?
Bob,
You’re on your own–kill ’em yourself, d*mmit! (If you can find them, they’re in less plentiful supply these days…)
I dont equate a difference between socalists and communists.. so its not a problem.
i dont mind doing it on my own… you could please point me in the direction of the nearest most weakly defended nuclear installation, instead then please.
I dont equate a difference between socalists and communists.. so suply of cannonfodder’s not a problem.
i dont mind doing it on my own… you could please point me in the direction of the nearest most weakly defended nuclear installation, instead then please.
Under the nearest bridge, Bob. And if you don’t find it, just stay there anyway. It’s where you belong.
alan.. you keep at it making smarmy little comments in this blog thats connected to the back end of nowhere lost in cyberspace, if you really think its going to bring down the world order and Liberterians are going to take over using nothing but intellectal rational debate..
meanwhile.. im not going to argue with you.. cos we are on the same team.. its just i believe the use violence will be more effective.. and considering your the kind of person whose idea of action is to bitch on the internet.. its not like your going to be able do anything to stop me anyway.
If violent revolution is your aim, you are in the wrong place.
no a libertarian state is my aim.. violent revoultion is my method.
this may not be my place “yet” but as the liberterian movement is so small in the UK.. ive got no where else to be.. so im going to stick around.
no a libertarian state is my aim.. violent revoultion is my method.
this may not be my place “yet” but as the liberterian movement is so small in the UK.. ive got no where else to be.. so im going to stick around.
Is tony blair a ligitamate target?
Bob. Your aim of a libertarian state may be admirable but the notion violent revolution is a viable (hence desirable) way to get to that at this juncture is patently absurd.
You have obviously not grasped what Samizdata.net is about. We are in the business of injecting ideas into the zeitgeist. What you are doing is pretty much the opposite, which is to say you are marginalising yourself by making threats against Tony Blair and thus guaranteeing most people will just dismiss you as ‘lunatic fringe’ without even having to engage your ideas.
Thus, sorry to disappoint you but your comments are counterproductive and thus not welcome here.
This blogroach does not respect private property or respond to polite requests, so his comments have been deleted.
There are many more things that libertarians could discuss: for example anti-depressants.
It may be seen as everyone’s right to take as many drugs as they wish as long as they do not expect anyone else to pay for the consequences but the new generation of drugs are likely to relieve anxiety (which increasingly appears to be genetically determined) to such an extent that human societies could change in unforseen ways and inequalities could be reduced. For example if societies are predicated on a given proportion of extroverted high-achievers in relation to worried introverts who use all their energy on unnecessary fear, then what happens if the number of these shrinking violets is reduced?
I have so far heard nothing on this subject from anyone other than the likes of Lynda Lee Potter who thinks that people should “pull their socks up.”
In regards to CMU in the Darpa Race . CMU broke down as SciAutonics II was going to pass it for the lead. SciAutonics II had to be paused so a wrecker could move the CMU Red wreck.
Regards,
Paul