In this daring episode, Rod and Will take us back to 1894 Paris, when a small newspaper had a brilliant idea to boost circulation. 

 

A wacky endurance race that would take no prisoners.

 

In this race there were no fewer than 20 different methods of propulsion from steam, petrol, compressed air, clockwork, a system of pendulums through to a mechanical motor. From a four tonne monster tractor right down to a tricycle. With one steering wheel in the whole race (steering wheels were not a thing back then). Basically, it was a Festival of Crazy Mechanical Stuff.

 

But we’re not actually talking about that race today. 

 

We’re talking about the more high tech (but bizarrely similar) version of that race, more than 100 years later. In 2003, the US Defence Advanced Research Agency (DARPA’s) announced its first ‘autonomous vehicle grand challenge’. Popular Science Magazine called this ‘DAPRA’s Debacle in the Desert’. 

 

Excellent. 

 

You might see where this is going.

 

The top secret race track (the location of which was only announced three hours before the race began) ran across the Mojave Desert. The race designer, a man by the name of Sal Fish, designed a course that incorporated everything you can imagine you might find in a desert. Rocks, left turns, right turns, dips, gullies, cacti. Drop offs, barbed wire fences, animals that could come out of nowhere, train tracks. Thankfully, DARPA, being the thoughtful department that they are, had a crew of biologists run a final sweep for the endangered desert tortoise. 

 

No animals were harmed.

 

Tony Tether, the Director of DARPA was really not expecting anyone to be interested. Even though there was a $1 million dollar prize (yes, you had to finish the race, not just get the furthest). But on the morning of registration people were lined up around the block -  106 team applications in total. It’s not that hard to make an autonomous vehicle right - basically Chitty Chitty Bang Bang with a laptop?

 

The final, whittled down entrants (15 in total) were the most varied bunch you can think of. From highschool kids, the CEO of a loudspeaker company (excellent marketing strategy) through to a cantankerous ex-Marine who also happened to be a talented roboticist. 

 

As for the vehicles, Sal Fish (our course designer) exclaimed “My God, these vehicles were something out of Mad Max.”

 

Join Rod and Will on this wild ride - did anyone win, or did it turn into a robotic graveyard? And learn how that 1894 race turned into the ultimate inspiration for the autonomous vehicles we (almost) have today.

REFERENCES:

Standage, T. (2021). A Brief History of Motion: From the Wheel, to the Car, to what Comes Next. Bloomsbury Publishing.

 

The Autonomous-Car Chaos of the 2004 Darpa Grand Challenge

https://www.wired.com/story/autonomous-car-chaos-2004-darpa-grand-challenge/

 

World’s 1st Motor Racing Event Had A 90 Mins Lunch Break (Dec 202, 2020)

https://medium.com/formula-one-forever/worlds-1st-motor-racing-event-had-a-90-mins-lunch-break-6b0f203cf016

 

From Darpa Grand Challenge 2004DARPA’s Debacle in the Desert

Behind the scenes at the DARPA Grand Challenge, the 142-mile robot race that died at mile 7

JUN 4, 2004 

https://www.popsci.com/scitech/article/2004-06/darpa-grand-challenge-2004darpas-debacle-desert/

 

An Oral History of the Darpa Grand Challenge, the Grueling Robot Race That Launched the Self-Driving Car

https://www.wired.com/story/darpa-grand-challenge-2004-oral-history/

 

The Grand Challenge

https://www.darpa.mil/about-us/timeline/-grand-challenge-for-autonomous-vehicles

 

DARPA Urban Challenge

https://www.darpa.mil/about-us/timeline/darpa-urban-challenge

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