The Grand Flying Robot Challenge

from the contests,-contests-everywhere dept

If you're sitting around waiting for the X-Prize contestants to blast into space looking for their millions of dollars, or the autonomous vehicles of DARPA's grand challenge to figure out how to travel more than 10 feet or so, there are always other similar "grand challenges" going on. Apparently going on for four years now, the International Aerial Robotics Competition was held yesterday to see if teams could create a robot that can "fly 3 miles, identify a building and enter it in less than 15 minutes." Once again, however, no team successfully finished the challenge. Each year, though, the prize goes up another $10,000. So, while no one won the $40,000 this year, next year the prize should be $50,000. Get to work.