Robopocalypse! Go Home! You're DRUNK!

Top Ten Teams From DARPA's Robopocalyptic Robotics Challenge

Overview Video of the Challenge:

Top Ten Teams with Top Three Videos here:

1. TEAM KAIST (8 points, 44:28 minutes)

2. TEAM IHMC ROBOTICS (8 points, 50:26 minutes)

3. TARTAN RESCUE (8 points, 55:15 minutes)

4. TEAM NIMBRO RESCUE (7 points, 34:00)

5. TEAM ROBOSIMIAN (7 points, 47:59 minutes)

6. TEAM MIT (7 points, 50:25 minutes)

7. TEAM WPI-CMU (7 points, 56:06 minutes)

8. TEAM DRC-HUBO @ UNLV (6 points, 57:41 minutes)

9. TEAM TRAC LABS (5 points, 49:00 minutes)

10. TEAM AIST-NEDO (5 points, 52:30 minutes)

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DARPA's Robopocalyptic Robotic Challenge Bots

DARPA'S

ROBOPOCALPTIC!

BOTS!




Here!

Robopocalypse: Boston Dynamics' Atlas Gets an Upgrade

DARPA's Atlas Unplugged

DARPA's Atlas robot is designed for its Robot challenge and in its first version it was impressive, if slightly threatening. Now it's back with an up-grade and its 75% new and amazing.

Atlas was the robot from sci-fi, big, black and powerful - only it had these cables that provided it with power and made it look a little like a dog on a leash. It was designed to provide a hardware platform for teams competing in the DARPA Robotic's Challenge DRC - a competition designed to encourage the construction of an effective disaster response robot. Now it has been revealed that the finals of the DRC require that the robot used not to have a tether and hence Atlas needed a redesign.

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SCH-SCH-SCH-SCHAFT! Robotics, erm, Google Robotics Schafted Division

DARPA Delaying, Increasing Money to Robotic Challenge Teams due to Success of First Challenge

The Pentagon is giving more time and money to companies that have shown promise in fielding a humanoid robot.

Eleven of 16 firms that put their robot prototypes through their paces in June at have now been given an additional six months and $1.5 million each by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency to continue their work, the Pentagon said on July 15.

The DARPA Robotics Challenge, or DRC, was originally scheduled to end with a winning robot in December, but has now been pushed back to June.

The 11 teams receiving DARPA funds will also be competing against privately funded teams, both domestic and international.

The Pentagon characterizes the humanoid robot it is looking to develop as an asset that could be deployed worldwide to assist first responders in rescue operations.

If there is also a weaponized version a la The Terminator anywhere in the plan the Pentagon has not said so.

The winning team of the DARPA Robotics Challenge will be awarded $2 million.

The extended time and increased budget was not because of missed timetables or disappointment with technologies, but actually because the trials held in Florida last December were so successful, according to a report in the National Defense, the news magazine of the National Defense Industry Association.

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DARPA Delays, Increases Difficulty of DARPA Robotics Challenge

Rapid progress in commercial robotics is leading the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa) to raise the bar for the finals of its disaster-response robotics challenge, now planned for June 2015 in Pomona, California.

Human-supervised robots fared better than expected in the Darpa Robotics Challenge (DRC) trials in December, so the agency is giving teams more time and resources to prepare for the finals, which have been pushed back six months. The prize remains $2 million.

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Some Crypto Coin Mischief

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Are Google and DARPA Headed on Collision Course?

Even though the Internet search giant owns two companies that have contracts with the Pentagon, Google is choosing to forego military funding from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency in at least one robotic competition.

Google bought the robotics firm Schaft that had developed a bipedal robot that won DARPA’s Robotics Challenge. The competition asked companies to develop a robot that could perform disaster response tasks to include navigating debris, climbing ladders and turning off a valve.

Schaft earned the highest score in DARPA’s competition. Google and Schaft are not bailing from the program all together, but the company is moving to the “self-funded Track D of the program,” DARPA officials announced last week.

Google earned $37 billion in 2013 and it appears the company would prefer to distance itself from the military in its initiative to develop next generation robots. Enough questions are already being asked about Google and other companies’ cooperation with NSA and U.S. intelligence agencies.

Along with Schaft, Google also bought Boston Dynamics, a company that DARPA has come to depend on to develop multiple pieces of equipment.

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Final Results From the DARPA Terminator, ahem, Robotics Challenge

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Rumors have it NASA JSC's bot cost $3 million. 

DARPA's Terminator, ahem, Robotics Challenge Entrants

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The Obstacle Course for DARPA's Robotics Challenge (ahem, terminator challenge) Unveiled

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