The DARPA challenge is meant to be the ultimate quest for a disaster droid that will save humans from doom, enter dangerous territories, perform life-saving manoeuvres with human dexterity and adeptness while leading the charge on rescue missions.
This weekend's competition however, proved to be an epic fail as the 'life saving' robots kept falling over, instilling little confidence in the machines' ability to take charge of anything, let alone rescuing human life. So much for apocalyptic robots taking over the world.
On the rare occasion when the robots stayed upright to perform a task experts commented on the droids' lack of speed.
Brad Tousley, director of tactical technology at Darpa said "It's like watching paint dry," while watching the bots take an hour to perform eight tasks -- again, no need to fear a robotic apocalypse.
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According to competition rules the robots were required to stand up on their own or face a penalty and Gizmodo reports that out of all the 23 teams, Tartan Rescue's Chimp was the only one that managed to get back on its feet on its own.
The first prize, $2 million, was awarded to Korean Institute for Science and Technology (KAIST)'s DRC-Hubo as it completed the circuit in the fastest time -- 44 minutes 28 seconds.
In second place was Team IHMC Robotics' Running Man completing the circuit in 50 minutes 26 seconds and in third place was Tartan Rescue's Chimp which took 55 minutes and 15 seconds.
Regardless of the winners and losers, rest easy as it'll be a long time before DRC-Hubo, Running Man or Chimp replace us.