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DARPA’s Robotic Challenge Trials wrapped up earlier today, and the robot that reigned supreme is SCHAFT. The squat 209 pound, 4.85 foot-tall robot smoked the competition, scoring 27 points, besting its next closest competitor by 35% in overall points.
The challenge is focused on demonstrating advancements in robotics which could improve disaster response efforts. For the competition, the bipedal humanoid robots had to perform each of the following tasks:
In the end, SCHAFT beat out numerous teams from DARPA’s home nation, taking the top spot in the terrain, ladder, debris, and fire hose tasks.
Here’s Team SCHAFT explaining a bit about what makes their robot special:
The time-compressed footage shown below is SCHAFT practicing its tasks prior to this weekend’s event.
Florida Institute for Human & Machine Cognition’s (IMHC Robotics) robot did quite well, coming in second place, taking first place in the door and wall challenges.
While it’s the end of the line for some of the robots, the top eight teams will get funded to move on to the final rounds in 2014.
[via LiveScience]
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This week's giveaway is more or less amazing. More storage space, less wires and all topped off with one of Amazon's newest in the Kindle slate series: the 7-inch Fire HDX. SanDisk has cut the cord with its Connect series of wireless portable storage gadgets and felt that two lucky Engadget readers should get a free taste of this next-gen hocus pocus. The SanDisk Connect Wireless Flash Drive offers up to 32GB of space and works double duty, as both a wireless drive and a standard USB device. The Connect Wireless Media Drive in this prize package is the largest capacity version, with 64GB of internal storage, and is capable of streaming media wirelessly to up to eight devices at once. This is the ideal setup for tuning out on your holiday travels or even just vegging on the couch, or pretty much anywhere. We've got two sets of awesomeness ready and waiting thanks to SanDisk Connect, and you could be one of the lucky winners. Just head on down to the Rafflecopter widget below and get in it to win it!
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