Princeton team arrives in Victorville, pumped for the DARPA Urban Challenge national qualification event

The Prince­ton Urban Grand Chal­lenge team has arrived in Vic­torville, Calif., just in time for today’s open­ing ceremonies.

The Prince­ton team is the only under­grad­u­ate team among the 35 semi­fi­nal­ists in the event, which promises $3.5 mil­lion in prize money. Most teams par­tic­i­pat­ing in the qual­i­fi­ca­tion event have seri­ous finan­cial and tech­ni­cal sup­port from indus­try spon­sors. By con­trast, the Prince­ton team has been oper­at­ing on a shoe­string bud­get; its main resources have been spunk, enthu­si­asm and brainpower.

You can catch up on their exploits by read­ing some recent cov­er­age by Humphrey Che­ung of Tgdaily and Kevin Cough­lin of the Star-Ledger. For more on the tech­nol­ogy dri­ving the car, see this post on ditii.com. And Collegotr.com offers a novel fund­ing idea for Princeton’s team of “baby Einsteins.”

You can see the full team ros­ter here (trad­ing cards not yet avail­able). And be sure to fol­low Princeton’s progress in the com­pe­ti­tion by read­ing the team blog.

More pho­tos below, from a send-off cer­e­mony last week in Prince­ton: Team mem­bers peer inside the Prince­ton vehi­cle; Dean H. Vin­cent Poor (cen­ter) offers his bene­dic­tion to fac­ulty adviser Alain Korn­hauser and team; a film crew inter­views one of the Prince­ton team members.

Pho­tos by Frank Wojciechowski