DARPA Robotics Challenge 2015 Proves You Could Beat a Robot at Anything, Easily

Robots suck right now. They are slow and they are dumb and they fall over a whole lot. True robot autonomy remains a distant dream. Robot power usage is outrageous, requiring ungainly battery backpacks. A robot on wheels or treads continues to have huge advantages over bipedal humanoid designs. But it won’t stay that way for long, so enjoy your feeling of haughty superiority while you can.

DARPA Robotics Challenge 2015 Task Course

The DARPA Robotics Challenge is an effort to push forward the field through competition, with 24 teams competing through a series of challenges and trials for a combined $3.5 million in prize money. The Challenge is an obstacle course with eight tasks:

1. Driving to the location

2. Getting out of the vehicle

3. Opening a door

4. Turning a valve

5. Drilling a hole in a wall

6. Surprise Task! (Saturday’s challenge was unplugging an extension cord and plugging it into a different socket)

7. Walking through or over rubble.

8. Climbing stairs to the victory platform

Only one team, Tartan Rescue and its CHIMP robot, completed every task. You could do every task easily.

The robots get an hour to navigate the course. The fastest team to complete seven of the eight tasks took 34 minutes. You could probably do it in under five minutes.

And unless you’re an infant, you probably wouldn’t fall down trying to open a door or walk over uneven ground.

Robots Falling Down at the DARPA Robotics Challenge

You are better than robots that cost millions of dollar to develop. Enjoy that while you still can.