IEEE Spectrum article on DARPA Robotics Challenge

Here is what some mechanical engineering students (mostly grad students) and professionals are up to lately. This IEEE Spectrum news article from Saturday gives the final results of the two-day competition but lacks much detail. The link in the first sentence takes you back to the Friday competition and shows pictures of some of the robots in action.

There should be more updates from them over the next few days.

I stumbled across an article about the Carnegie-Mellon University (CMU) Tartan Rescue "CHIMP" project a few weeks ago. It uses a non-human model for the robot, as does a JPL team.

A non-human model is starting to attract attention for specialized tasks where there is no reason to have the robot look semi-human. For example, there is a research group at Florida State pursuing the cockroach as a model for a small robot that can climb a vertical wall while carrying a camera to assist military or police teams planning to enter a potentially hostile area.