While the name DARPA is likely to bring up crazy ideas of government conspiracies and black helicopters, their contest is not so mysterious and quite frankly, coming to a close shortly. I must say, it never ceases to amaze me the wild stuff that comes out of that desert, even if none of it actually comes from Area 51.

Can you create a totally robotic ground vehicle that can navigate one hundred and seventy-five miles of brutal desert terrain in under 10 hours?

Then you have a chance at winning the two million dollar prize in the 2005 DARPA Grand Challenge. The race itself starts October 8th, but you need to make sure you’ve got your application in by 5 PM Eastern Standard Time February 11 if you want to be eligible to compete.

This is the second running of the Grand Challenge.

The first took place in 2004 for a prize of one million dollars. Fifteen self guided vehicles attempted the course from Mojave, California to Primm, Nevada. None of the 15 vehicles in the 2004 challenge managed to complete the 142-mile course and the million dollar prize rolled over into this year’s competition.

DARPA, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, acts as the R&D branch of the US Department of Defense pursuing “technology where risk and payoff are both very high and where success may provide dramatic advances for traditional military roles and missions.” Two of its higher profile successes include the ARPANET, which grew into the Internet, and stealth technology for combat aircraft.

The Grand Challenge is designed to “accelerate development of autonomous vehicle technologies that will save lives on the battlefield.” DARPA claims that important ideas came out of the 2004 Grand Challenge, and that even if no team wins the two million dollar prize this year “important research progress will be made regardless.”