Teams from all over the world convened in Pomona, California, on Friday to compete in the DARPA Robotics Challenge Finals.
The winning team takes home $2 million and the satisfaction that their creation could one day rescue people after earthquakes, nuclear meltdowns and other disasters. Many of the 25 teams competing are using the ATLAS robot developed by Boston Dynamics.
But quite a few are using their own creations. That includes other walking, humanoid robots like THOR from the U.S. and Walk-Man from Italy, as well more exotic shapes like the four-legged RoboSimian and the primate-inspired CHIMP.
Each robot will have an hour to complete a course that involves tasks like driving a car, climbing stairs and cutting a hole in a wall. The winner will be announced Saturday, the second and final day of competition, with a total of $3.5 million going out to the top three teams.
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The field is wide open this year. SCHAFT, the winner of the 2013 trials, pulled itself out of the competition after the company was bought by Google.