So the latest DARPA challenge is currently underway. If you haven’t heard of it, last year they were racing automated cars across the desert. The Stanford team took home the cash prize with their modded VW Touareg.

This year the ante has been upped and the contest is being held in an urban environment. Wired has some pretty good coverage, but the best stuff is up on youtube.

All this reminded me of a crazy post I saw on NPR a little while back. This guys is creating some truly remarkable “creatures” completely powered by the wind with 40’s erra mechanical processing “brains”!

Sand Beast

Check out the video on the TED site

Popularity: 14% [?]

[Slashdot] [Digg] [Reddit] [del.icio.us] [Facebook] [Technorati] [Google] [StumbleUpon]

COMMENTS / 4 COMMENTS

Great videos of these automatic cars! I was very impressed with the first video and laughed out loud at the second. This is great stuff!

Nancy Hevenor added these comments on Oct 30 07 at 9:05 am

Two neat topics. I have followed the DARPA competition since the beginning. The first task involved a desert course. The first meeting, the best only made a few miles. The next year, the Stanford VW won. I think the course was about 130 miles. This one is an urban simulation.

I love the piece on Theo Jansen. I am passing the link along to old engineering buddies.

Chuck Hevenor added these comments on Nov 02 07 at 2:50 pm

NY Times article

adam added these comments on Nov 06 07 at 8:49 am

i saw that TED on those machines and thought they were really interesting.

Courtney added these comments on Dec 12 07 at 9:56 am

SPEAK / ADD YOUR COMMENT
Comments are moderated.

Return to Top

Automata

TAG / CLOUD

FRESH / LATEST POSTS

FEATURED / BEST OF adamhevenor.com