Grand Challenge Participants Announced
from the disappointed-teams-go-home dept
Last week we reported how DARPA was stunned that over 100 teams had decided to enter their Grand Challenge of creating a completely autonomous vehicle that could navigate a 250-mile course which would be revealed only hours before the race began. Folks at DARPA were under the belief that maybe 10-15 teams would enter the race, and had promised local officials that no more than 20 would race. It appears they’ve pushed that upper limit to 25. They’ve made the official cuts and named nineteen qualifying teams – and said they may name six more out of a group of twenty-six teams who could qualify (DARPA folks want to visit with each of those teams to determine if they can join the race). They also said that, of the 106 applications requested, twenty teams didn’t actually submit the application. Thus, forty-one teams were rejected outright. Of those that made the cut, you might be surprised to find a high school team mixed in with teams from CalTech and Carnegie Mellon. The full list of the nineteen approved teams can be found here.
