A Disappointing Day For Technology

(sigh) The DARPA Grand Challenge began well, with most of the 15 autonomous vehicles making it over the start line... But then it all fell apart. All of the vehicles are now "disabled", none got farther than 7 miles. (sigh) I'm interested in knowing what happened with my favorites. Each of them had my support for a different reason. Phantasm is from a suburb of St. Louis. Of course I was rooting for the home team! They would have gotten my vote anyway, because they put all the companies who donated to the project right up on their front page. Unfortunately, Team Phantasm didn't make it through the qualifying rounds.
The Palos Verdes Road Warriors survived the qualifying rounds and headed off to the race, but traveled less than a mile before breaking down. They were the only high school team to even try for the DARPA prize; and I salute them for making it as far as they did.
TerraMax, by far the largest of the vehicles; stayed running the longest. But it didn't go very far.
I also had my fingers crossed for The Spirit of Kosrae, because Axion Racing has a great sense of humor. Oh, well.

DARPA is considering the challenge again in 2006. They spent 13 Million dollars setting the challenge up, but it should be cheaper next time because they won't have to build all the obstacles and markers and such.
So, 2 years from now I'll once again, be rooting for the geeks of the world. I'll be reading their websites, peeking at their pictures, and hoping for success.