Stanford came in first but 3 other teams finished the 132 mile course through the desert in the DARPA Grand Challenge 2005. I think that’s historic and a day that will be remembered in the annals of technological advances. These were totally autonomous robotics vehicles that were not given the course until 2 hours before the start of the race.

The $2 million prize and big bragging rights goes to Stanford and Sebastian Thrun’s team who beat out the favoured CMU robots and teams headed by Red Whittaker, the acknowledged top dog in the field.

The Stanford robot averaged 19.1 mph which is very impressive given the difficult terrain.