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DARPA officials have heard rumors of more fantastic possibilities: giant bouncing robotic balls, robots that vault across the desert like a grasshopper or scuffle like a spider. Paul Grayson, a Michigan mechanic and amateur robot builder who heads Team AIM Racing, traveled to West Virginia to size up surplus Humvees - the Army combat vehicle that replaced the Jeep. A solar-powered Tonka toy like the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Mars Sojourner is out. The first hurdle is designing a vehicle sturdy enough to survive jostling.
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If nobody finishes, which he considers likely, "it could produce a significant letdown," he says.
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"It's really pushing the field to its limits," says Ronald Arkin, director of the Mobile Robot Laboratory at the Georgia Institute of Technology. To complete the race in 10 hours, vehicles must average 25 mph - a speed taxing the most advanced collision-avoidance technology. The epic fills five DVDs and has become a hot seller among teams who can't scout the route in person.ĭespite the rough ride, Schoenmeyr remains an optimist: "I think we're going to be able to pull it off," he says. Schoenmeyr, an engineer at a Los Angeles water pump company by day, filmed every mile with three digital video cameras to calibrate the sensors that will guide his robot. "At least, robots won't have to worry about that," Schoenmeyr says.Īlong the way, the group plunged into sudden 3-foot dips, crossed oceans of tire-miring sand and battled one stretch so rugged it "looked like the mini-Grand Canyon." Even with four-wheel-drive vehicles, the trip took a tortuous 16 hours and left most of the occupants carsick. "We wanted to see, on any given stretch of road, how fast you can go before you start losing it," Schoenmeyr says. Ivar Schoenmeyr, 54, leader of Team Ghost-Riders, spent a recent weekend bucking across the Mojave with his teammates in a couple of four-wheel-drive trucks to size up the terrain.