Red Team Featured on NOVA's "Great Robot Race" March 28

Red Team leader William "Red" Whittaker says the show features the "violent and wretched time of birthing a new machine."

Carnegie Mellon's Red Whittaker, the Red Team and Red Team Too will be prominently featured in NOVA's "Great Robot Race," an episode of the PBS science series that focuses on the DARPA Grand Challenge race held last October. The program will air at 8 p.m., Tuesday, March 28, and again at 1 a.m., Thursday, March 30.

The Red Team's Sandstorm and Red Team Too's H1ghlander were two of only four robotic vehicles to finish the 130-mile desert race.

NOVA film crews closely followed the Red Team's preparations in Pittsburgh for the race, including what Whittaker called the "violent and wretched time of birthing a new machine." The teams included 50 students and professionals.

The program will include the only aerial footage of the historic race and will feature the race's eventual winner, Stanford University's robotic vehicle named "Stanley." The Stanford team was headed by former Carnegie Mellon faculty member Sebastian Thrun.

For more on the program, visit: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/darpa/

For more on the Red Team, visit: http://www.redteamracing.org

Anne Watzman
Byron Spice
March 27, 2006