From Darpa Grand Challenge 2004DARPA's Debacle in the Desert

At the evening reception at Buffalo Bill´s, the DARPA officials couldn´t congratulate themselves enough for a job well done. Even the disappointing matter of a 142-mile race that lasted only 7.4 miles was jocularly laid at the feet of course designer Sal Fish, the president of the SCORE off-road racing organization. "The first part (of the course) was definitely the hard part, and I definitely blame Sal Fish," DARPA director Anthony Tether declared in celebrity-roast high spirits. He was on firmer ground when he advanced an oft-repeated yet nonetheless plausible argument that the race had succeeded admirably in its primary mission of galvanizing engineers (even those still in high school) to get to work on a new generation of autonomous support and supply vehicles.


Clearly, the Grand Challenge strange brew of technical audacity and Johnny-get-your-laptop populism had touched some kind of national nerve. "I haven't seen this much interest in something related to national security since the days of the Apollo space program," Tether declared, before announcing that Grand Challenge 2005 would go forward-this time with a $2 million prize. According to Red Whittaker's e-mail "Race Log," a kind of computer diary of Captain Ahab-ian obsession-filed in late March, "The Grand Challenge will be completed in September or October of 2005, hence about 550 days remain to race day."

The media might be a little wary about a full-court coverage of next year's race, but evidently the people who build and sponsor robots can´t wait. ("Next year we'll have seniors on the team," Palos Verdes student leader Chris Seide exulted to the assembled multitudes.) DARPA's Tom Strat anticipates some 500 aspiring entrants, five times the number this year. And while much of this year's field was unable to cope even with preliminary trials-the first day at Fontana, only two of eight bots attempting to qualify made it out of the gate-the consensus is that, with the benefit of experience, next year´s second-time contenders ought to be ready to rumble. From DARPA's perspective, what's not to like? This just gives them another round of technological innovation paid for mostly by someone else.


While Grand Challenge 2004 had its moments of winging-it improvisation, who's to say it wasn't the right hot-house atmosphere to grow the next generation of American roboticists? The Blue Team's Anthony Levandowski, for one, learned something about grace under pressure. "Right before the demonstration, the crowd was cheering and we were so excited that we forgot to switch the bike over from autonomous to drive-by-wire," he said. "Next time, I'll have it tattooed to my arm."