Six teams have just been cut from the National Qualifying Event for DARPA's autonomous car rally, after a series of crashes, wrong turns, and assorted robotic mishaps.
Says DARPA's official statement: "Based on performance in the NQE tests to date, data collected by the scorers and rulings by the judging team, DARPA has determined that the following teams are not ready to compete in the Final Event, and will no longer participate in the NQE."
Here's the list:
That narrows the field from 35 teams here in Victorville, CA, to 29 still in the running. At least nine of those left will be cut, to bring the number of competitors to no more than 20 for the race itself on November 3.
Rumors of the eliminations started flying this morning, when the Sting Racing team didn't show up at its appointed time at Test Area A. It's too bad -- the team recovered from two mishaps to make a strong showing at Test Area C yesterday, and it seemed they were back on track.
There's no sign of life at the team's tent -- maybe they've all gone out to drown their troubles somewhere.
Meanwhile, the action is heating up on the courses today. DARPA's thrown out the published testing schedule and agency director Tony Tether himself is on hand on the left-turn-and-merge track, or Test Area A, to swap promising teams in and out at an accelerated pace. Elimination is the name of the game now.
