Stanford’s autonomous robotic vehicle ‘Stanley’ took home the $2-million first prize in the DARPA Grand Challenge. Traversing the 131.6 mile course in just under 7 hours, Stanley beat out both teams from Carnegie Mellon University, H1lander and Sandstorm, by over 10 minutes. only 15 minutes behind the lead pack at 7.5 hours was the Gray Team’s KAT-5, so named because the team’s home of Metarie, LA, just outside of New Orleans, was damaged by hurricane Katrina. The Oshkosh Truck Company’s entry TerraMax was allowed to complete the course this morning, and was the only finisher that crossed the line beyond the 10-hour time limit, at almost 13-hours moving time, and over 26 hours on the course (the ‘bot was paused a number of times because of course obstuctions, and spent the night paused on the course).

With a great deal of respect for the teams that competed, I will have to say that while I am excited that 5 teams were able to complete the course, it seems like the course was a good deal less complicated than last year. There were a number of obstructions, including tunnels, high-tension power line towers, and a precarious mountain pass, but a great majority of the time the vehicles were on ground that a compact sedan could traverse. I think that DARPA did a good job of making certain that at least a few of the teams would finish, after last year’s PR nightmare when the best contender only travelled 7.5 miles. But, I have to ask, was this really a Grand Challenge, or was it more of a task tailored to the capabilites of the vehicles competing? Regardless of the answer, it is poingant to note that DARPA managed to get tens of millions of dollars of research and development from a few million investment by putting on the Grand Challenge. And, knowing DARPA’s history of return on investments (their motto is to go after high-risk, high payoff research), this may have been their best turn-around yet.