Friday, December 11th, 2009

DARPA Balloon Hunt Challenge

Red Balloon #6, Collins Avenue, Miami, Florida. DARPA image.

The challenge: find the geographic coordinates of 10 red weather balloons scattered across the country, as quickly as possible. The contest, sponsored by DARPA, aimed to "explore the roles the Internet and social networking play in the timely communication, wide-area team-building, and urgent mobilization required to solve broad-scope, time-critical problems." The winning team, from MIT, located the balloons in under nine hours, just days after learning about the contest. Their approach involved encouraging others to join their team and provide useful information by offering to share the prize money with both those who brought useful information as well as with those who referred those with the information to the team. We'll find out more.