This is being announced to us or everyone right now? It's only around 10 weeks away: that seems surprisingly close. Have some folk already been made aware & have they had time to build for this DARPA Challenges? Generally I think of them as longer running challenges.

I'm looking forward to the DARPA Challenge to create a service where you can sign up to be emailed about new challenges. This one started October, 2025. More details at https://www.darpa.mil/research/challenges/lift/competitors

"Phase 1 | Launch

October 2025

Special Notice publishing (Oct. 23): DARPA publishes a Special Notice to broadly announce the Lift Challenge and solicit innovative design concepts.

Website launches (Oct. 23): DARPA publishes a Special Notice to broadly announce the Lift Challenge and solicit innovative design concepts.

Rules and prize announcement (Oct. 23): Detailed draft rules and prize structure are announced, specifying objective and subjective judging criteria."

> Generally I think of them as longer running challenges.

Given how outlandish the ratio requirement is compared to currently available products I expect this one will be recurring for at least a few years similar to what happened with the self driving challenge 20ish years ago.

this competition was announced October last year. IIRC registration ended sometime Q1 this year.