Outside the robotics community, even amongst car enthusiasts, the DARPA Grand Challenge is - like so many social and technological watersheds - simply unheard of!

Is that you now asking: "So what is it?"

A United States government-sponsored competition that aims to create the first fully autonomous vehicles capable of competing on an under-300 mile, off-road course in the Mojave Desert in the Southwest United States.

The point of it? Not the advance of humanity, or the nobility of scientific challenge. Rather, to facilitate robotic development with the goal of making one third of ground military forces automated by 2015. Sigh! (Still, that’s roughly how the Internet began)

The most exciting dimension of the DARPA Grand Challenge is not who won, how, how fast, or the prize money, but comparing the RESULTS with the year before (2004).

The 2005 Grand Challenge winner completed the 132-mile race in 6 hours 53 minutes and 58 seconds. Four other vehicles succeeded within the 10 hour limit.

All but one of 23 finalists in the 2005 race passed the 7.36 mile distance completed by the best vehicle in the 2004 race.

That’s for taking notice of.