The DARPA Robotics Challenge Trials are being held Friday and Saturday (Dec. 20–21) at the Homestead Miami Speedway in Homestead, Fla. The contest, which features teams from five different countries, is designed to foster the development of robots that could one day provide assistance following natural or manmade disasters.

DARPA, an arm of the U.S. Department of Defense responsible for developing new technologies for the military, will evaluate the performance of the robots on eight separate physical tasks. The challenges are intended to test the human operators and the robots' autonomous decision-making, perception, mobility, strength and dexterity.