Live Reports from the 2005 Darpa Grand Challenge

Race Standings Update

10-08-05 11:07am PDT

The first three vehicles to leave this morning, H1ghlander, Stanley, and Sandstorm, remain in a tight pack. H1ghlander is 93 miles into the course, and Stanley and Sandstorm are close behind at 91 and 89 miles respectively.

Team Enesco (72 miles) and Axion Racing's Spirit (63 miles) round out the top five distance wise. Keep in mind that the first bot to cross the finish isn't necessarily the winner-Team Enesco started tenth today-about 45 minutes after H1ghlander - and is rapidly making up distance on the lead pack and may complete the course in less time.

Recently eliminated vehicles include Golem 2 (34 miles), SciAutronics/Auburn Engineering Rascal (28 miles), Princeton University Prospect 11 (21 miles), Team Cornell (21 miles), MonsterMoto (19 miles), and Team Caltech's Alice, which slammed into a concrete barricade about 20 miles into the course.

-Bjorn

10-08-05 11:04am PDT

Darpa's offer to bring busloads of journalists to a vantage point near the course's halfway mark was a generous one, but unfortunately, the execution's a little off. Flummoxed by the sameness of Nevada desert roads, our driver gets hopelessly lost and has to resort to borrowing a cell phone from a passenger in the front row to call for help. "Too bad we don't have autonomous drivers already," a German journalist sitting across from me cracks. Thankfully, a nearby Darpa checkpoint officer sets us straight, and we're soon pulling into a deserted lot staked out with dozens of tripods.

Ten minutes after we arrive at the site, which overlooks a stretch of dirt road 68 miles into the course, H1ghlander's headlights appear on the horizon, shining through a whirling dust cloud. The bot arrives flanked by its full entourage: a chase vehicle, which provides support in case of an accident, and a chopper hovering on either side to collect video footage. Stanley chugs by about five minutes later, sporting what looks like a quarter-inch-thick coating of dust, but otherwise none the worse for wear. Sandstorm, trailing along a few miles behind, looks a little confused, veering from side to side as if being steered by a drunk driver. I have an instinctive urge to cheer the vehicles on as they whiz past, but remind myself there's no one inside to appreciate encouragement from the sidelines.

The press gaggle's general mood is one of excitement and chaos, but Darpa personnel don't hesitate to intervene from time to time to make sure order is strictly enforced. When a journalist tries to leave the site's fenced boundaries to get a better angle on his shot as Sandstorm approaches, he receives a bootcamp-style dressing-down from an organizer, who accuses him of "violating rules made by the Bureau of Land Management and the State of Nevada" and threatens to revoke his media credential.

Just as we're leaving the site, we catch another glimpse of H1ghlander from the window of the bus, this time chugging up a steep, powdery incline. Halfway up the hill, it slides agonizingly backward for about 10 feet, then, inch by inch, crawls forward to the top, as if channeling the spirit of the Little Engine That Could. This time, I can't resist letting out a little cheer. These competitors may be robots, but they've got some serious guts.

-Elizabeth