Just watched this awesome presentation by Sebastian Thrun from Stanford discussing his experiences on the robotics team that won the DARPA Grand Challenge, which is a competition run by the U.S organization, DARPA, to extend the field of research around autonomous ground vehicles.

Sebastian talks about the journey of designing, developing, testing and running Stanley (their robot car!) for the DGC!

For someone who has just discovered the coolness of building a robot vehicle, this presentation had be mesmerized (to steal a term from my robotics presso at Deakin Uni yesterday)! I really encourage anyone interested in where this field is moving to to watch the video, it's worth the hour!

And not only is there the Grand Challenge, next year (2007), they will be introducing the DARPA Urban Challenge!

So my only question remains... who's keen to get an Aussie team going!?