

DARPA director Tony Tether this morning revealed the names of the winning teams of his agency's robot car race, the Urban Challenge.

Carnegie Mellon's Tartan Racing Team scored the first place prize of $2 million. Stanford University's Stanford Racing team came in second for $1 million, and Virginia Tech's Victor Tango team won the third place prize of $500,000.

After awarding the third- and second-place prizes, Tether told an anecdote about his college and graduate school days at Stanford University, presumably to add suspense to the occasion. But by then the first place winner was obvious; Carnegie Mellon was the only other team among yesterday's top three finishers that hadn't yet gotten a prize.

"That's the first time I've seen Red speechless," Tether told the teams and spectators assembled on the finish line for the awards ceremony after he handed Tartan Racing team leader Red Whittaker his giant check. "Give me the microphone," Whittaker quipped.

Tether said at a press conference afterward that none of the winning teams had taken any demerits for traffic violations, and that the winners had all been selected based on their finishing times. Asked what those times were, Tether replied that he didn't "have that data" with him.

He did say that Tartan came in as a clear winner, with Stanford finishing about 20 minutes later, and Victor Tango coming in about 20 minutes after that, after taking into account the teams' different start times and the race's off-the-clock pauses.

Tether said Tartan's vehicle averaged about 14 miles per hour throughout the course, which covered about 55 miles. Stanford averaged about 13 miles per hour, and Virginia Tech averaged a bit less than that. In response to a question from the press, Tether said that MIT came in fourth place.

Tether couldn't have been more pleased with the race, calling it a "fantastic accomplishment," and saying that the technology for robotic vehicles was now just about ready for other companies and organizations to pick up the work in honing it further. "DARPA is an interesting organization," he said. "We really never finish anything. All we really do is show that it can be done. We take the technical excuse off the table, to the point where other people can no longer say 'Hey this is a very interesting idea, but you know that you can't do it.' I think that we're close to that point, that it's time for this technology to [be furthered] by somebody else."

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