DARPA's Urban Challenge ends: six cars cross the line, CMU takes 1st place

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BradVT @ Nov 4th 2007 3:47PM

Heck yeah! I go to Virginia Tech. The videos of "Odin" looked pretty cool, I knew it would do well.

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For first-timers, VT put in a surprisingly good showing. MIT, a surprisingly flaky one.

Team differences were interesting. Team Tartan was all HOO-ah, kick butt and take names, Vince Lombardi stuff, and a huge frickin' GM gas guzzlin' SUV the way God apparently intended it. Stanford Racing Team was more reserved, with a small, elegant European car, with a downright British, may-the-best-man-win-old-chap attitude.

And of course the head of Stanford Racing (Sebastian Thrun) used to be the star pupil of the head of Team Tartan (Red Whittaker), so you have that whole Obi-Wan to Anakin, "But you were the chosen one!" drama there. Perhaps they should have had the robot cars race over volcanic lava and had it set to music by John Williams.

Congratulations to CMU, Team Tartan and Red Whittaker. Many thanks to the other participants -- particularly Cornell and and MIT for the comic relief fender bender.

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Andrew @ Nov 4th 2007 5:31PM

That would make this competition the Revenge of the Sith.

VT's Odin looked like Yoda out there, very relaxed and confident. I guess MIT looked like General Grievous, sick and sputtering. MIT's car apparently has "road rage" programmed into it. When it cut off and crashed into Cornell I could imagine a robotic finger sticking out the window.

It was a great competition and I was really surprised to see Jamie Hyneman as an announcer. The best part of the race, however, was the air raid themed town that the competition was held in.

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BradVT @ Nov 4th 2007 5:50PM

@ Karim
What do you mean by first timers? Virginia Tech was in the previous DARPA challenges. Was there some other challenge I never heard of?

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Karim @ Nov 4th 2007 11:53PM

@ BradVT: Mea culpa, for some reason I was thinking this was Tech's first effort. Maybe it's because it was their first effort that didn't involve what appeared to be a golf cart? :-)

I stand corrected. In any event, way to make some Ivy League boys eat your dust. ;-) Go Hokies!

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