Well, they acknowledge the Army Research Office and the Office of Naval Research. And the IARC competitions have been held at Army and Navy facilities like Fort Benning as well as GIT and Epcot Center.

Want. Really, really want. Can it be piloted to fridge, grab beer, bring it to me? That would be Nobel-worthy.

You can buy a non-autonomous R/C version; they're sold as kits from here:
http://www.x3d-shop.de/

They are not cheap, though. If I am looking at the right model, it's about 960 Euros, almost $1500 at current exchange rates. Even if there's some sort of VAT you could get refunded, it's an pricey little number.

Makes me want to dig out some of my (standard, two rotor) R/C helis though. I bought both a gas and an electric one a few years ago, never quite managed to get the gas one working right...

Even *with* a heading-hold gyro, they are fairly difficult to fly though. It looks like the MIT people have found a way to make their model self-leveling; I wonder if that can be done to a regular top-and-tail rotor design.