[Donut]

This competition is by and far beyond what most (if any) high schools are capable of, as some have stated already.

I don't believe there are a massive amount of colleges competing in it, however if one near you isn't, you can always see if they are competing in other DARPA or other robotic challenges as well. I know the University of Arizona has a team competing in an autonomous-aircraft competition for DARPA, where they must build an autonomous reconnaissance plane that can detect open windows/doors/holes in a building and drop in a robot "spy" through the opening during a flyby, as well as take images of the targeted building. I'm planning on doing this there next year and one of the former members of my team will be a lead in the group next year as well.

The only other robotics competition I can think of off the top of my head is the firefighting robot competition, where robots must find an open flame in a room in a house, go to it and extinguish it, all under autonomous control.