Saturday
The advances in robotic vehicles due to the DARPA challenge prizes over the last few years has been nothing short of astounding. I am therefor slack-jawed at the congressional stupidity which has brought about this addition to the DARPA Urban Challenge press release:
UPDATED, October 2, 2006: Congress has changed the Secretary of Defense's authorities and DARPA no longer has authority to carry out programs to award cash prizes. Therefore, DARPA has announced that the top three teams to finish the 60-mile Urban Challenge course in less than six hours will receive trophies rather than cash prizes. Track B participants will not receive cash prizes for completing qualifying events, but will be eligible to compete for the trophies to be awarded in the final event. Track A participants will continue to receive up to $1 million in technology development funds for achieving key technical milestones.
I presume the problem with prizes is anyone from anywhere can enter and win it. This limits the usual opportunities for congressional corruption, or as I like to think of it, "Stevensing" (as in Ted Stevens, the Alaskan Ubercrook).
I do hope some sanity breaks out in the Washington asylum. There are other Grand Challenges going on which have been generating simply amazing results.
If this stand its utterly insane.
I suspect that there may be a feeling in DC that after the success of the X Prize and the other prize programs that somebody feels there are way too many of these things proliferating. The government's tight grasp on parts of the technology development process may be slipping through their fingers. I guess that the culprits may not be the 'porkists' on the Hill, but 'technololgy plateau' people in the permenent government and in academia. Jerome Wiesner Lives !
Posted by Taylor at November 4, 2006 11:02 PM
Cutting off the prize money is really stupid. How do they think that contestants afford to compete, especially the ones that come back year after year. In part, it's in expectation of winning some prizes.
I guess it wouldn't do for the University of Saskatchewan team to have walked off with the $150,000 U.S. for their rope-climbing robot, which came within 0.04m/s this year of taking the prize. The winning robot is expected to provide some of the technological know-how to build a "space elevator" or "skyhook."
Posted by Monado at November 4, 2006 11:57 PM
Really, Really stupid. Technological advances from DARPA would have cost the government over a billion dollars in contracts. The prize money given is the greatest bargain the government has ever received.
Posted by Jake at November 5, 2006 02:52 AM
Jake, think about it. If you are a government contractor and you see this happening, what instructions would you give to the members of congress that you keep on retainer? (As an "off the books" expense, of course.)
Posted by Midwesterner at November 5, 2006 03:32 AM
I shall pursue this with my [choke] congressfolk. I thought the challenge was brilliant. I believe that, like the Super Bowl and The World Series, there should be a technology contest every year.
Posted by Walter E. Wallis at November 6, 2006 04:58 PM
Just to be fair... I have been told that the NASA challenges were specifically authorized by Congress and are thus not at risk. I have not confirmed this myself.
It may therefor possible for the Urban Challenge and such by DARPA to also be specifically authorized if someone got their pet hawgs to go along with the idea.
Posted by Dale Amon at November 6, 2006 11:32 PM
Taylor passed this link along to me:
http://www.defenselink.mil/News/NewsArticle.aspx?id=2021
It appears that congress has indeed now specifically authorized prizes at DARPA, and as this is a very recent press release it appears to have happened at nearly the same time I wrote the article.
My guess is DARPA had simply not got around to fixing the Urban Challenge document.
Posted by Dale Amon at November 8, 2006 06:45 AM
