Like any open source project, this code base will require a certain amount of thoughtfulness. However, when you add a 2-ton vehicle into the equation, we also need to make safety our absolute top priority, and pull requests just don’t cut it. To really optimize for safety, we’re breaking down the problem of making the car autonomous into Udacity Challenges.
Each challenge will contain awesome prizes (cash and others) for the most effective contributions, but more importantly, the challenge format enables us to benchmark the safety of the code before we ever think of running it in the car. We believe challenges to be the best medium for us to build a Level-4 autonomous vehicle, while at the same time offering our contributors a valuable and exciting learning experience.