I forgot to mention this before, but Darpa's Grand Challenge -- an unmanned ground vehicle race from Los Angeles to Vegas is this weekend. The first team to finish the course within the time limit will win $1 million. There was an article about the Red Team from CMU in the March 2004 issue of Scientific American which chronicled their successes and failures over the course of several months. It looks bleak for them finishing the race in the allotted time, but it does for all the other contestants, too. However, the race will be annually repeated until someone does win or funding runs out (in 2007 I think).

The Grand Challenge main event is on March 13, 2004.