Win $40k With DARPA Balloons

[HighDragLowSpeed]

DARPA is offering $40k to simply find and plot 10 red weather balloons from readily accessible locations nationwide. The link for the rules actually goes to a DARPA site. Kinda cool...makes me wonder what they've done to make it hard.

DARPA "balloon hunt" could win you $40K cash
DARPA wants you to find 10 red weather balloons
By Layer 8 on Sun, 11/01/09 - 12:05am.

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) today offered up a rather interesting challenge: find and plot 10 red weather balloons scattered at undisclosed locations across the country. The first person to identify the location of all the balloons and enter them on the challenge Web site (http://networkchallenge.darpa.mil/Rules.pdf)will win a $40,000 cash prize.

According ton the agency, the balloons will be in readily accessible locations, visible from nearby roadways and accompanied by DARPA representatives. All balloons are scheduled to go on display at all locations at 10:00AM (ET) until approximately 4:00 PM on Saturday, December 5, 2009. Should weather or technical difficulties arise with the launch, the display will be delayed until Sunday, December 6 or later, depending on conditions. If, for any reason, the balloon is displayed in one location then moved to a second location, either location will be accepted.

Entrants are required to register and submit entries on the event website. Latitudes and longitudes are entered in degree-minute-second (DDD-MM-SS) format as explained on the website Coordinates must be entered with an error of less than one arc-minute to be accepted.

From http://www.networkworld.com/community/node/46944

[Spinner]

Sounds like a job for SOCNET.

It would be kind of funny if, within a couple of hours of the balloons being launched, this board had all the locations plotted.

I doubt I'll be seeing any in my AO because of my proximity to O'Hare AP.

[sfmedicw9]

I gotsta know...

why?

why are the eggheads throwing away 40k in tax money? i know its nothing - but its not their money

[Marina]

maybe DARPA is checking land nav skills, more likely looking at how social networks solve problems

actually, they state this in the intro, "a competition that will explore the role the Internet and social networking plays in the timely communication, wide area team-building and urgent mobilization required to solve broad scope, time-critical problems."

maybe they are trying to calculate how long it would take communities to respond to a suitcase nuke or something sinister

SOCNET should definitely have a team

[RGR.Montcalm]

Waddayawannabet that these are near military locations??

[GackMan]

I gotsta know...

why?

why are the eggheads throwing away 40k in tax money? i know its nothing - but its not their money


Better and more thorough screening of potential candidates than any recruiter could provide for less money.

[Spinner]

Waddayawannabet that these are near military locations??

I'm betting the locations will be randomly selected, without consideration to their proximity to one type of facility or another.

I'm wondering if a few of the balloons will be released in remote, sparsely populated areas, too. Readily accesible doesn't neccesarily mean heavily populated.

[Tracy]

maybe DARPA is checking land nav skills, more likely looking at how social networks solve problems...

Yep.

I'd wager there will be more refined contests in the future...

[Steve83]

All I can say is.....

I got Pheonix, Scottsdale, Tempe, and Mesa covered. 40k ten ways is 4,000 each.

[Spinner]

DARPA never makes things easy.

They don't call them Advanced Research for nothing. ;)

[HighDragLowSpeed]

Followup: Took all of nine hours for a team to find all of the balloons.

https://networkchallenge.darpa.mil/default.aspx

now if we could just get OBL to hold a balloon for a few hours....

[Spinner]

I'm not surprised that it was a team from MIT that figured it out. I guess DARPA was surprised that they pinpointed them all so quickly.