This Insanely Hard, Self-Driving Robot Race Takes Place In A Parking Lot

The hexapod robot in the foreground was constructed by Larry Watkins and Todd Heinze. In the background, a robot constructed by Ben Greer ambles along. The challenge of the Autonomous Vehicle Competition, hosted by hobbyist electronics vendor SparkFun at its Boulder, Colorado, headquarters, seems simple enough: Build a robot that can navigate itself around the company's parking lot. Though the AVC course is dotted with small obstacles, it's really just one lap -- a distance of less than 900 feet. But for the majority of competitors, it feels more like the path into Mordor.