- DARPA Network Challenge
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The 2009 DARPA Network Challenge was a prize competition for exploring the roles the Internet and social networking play in the real-time communications, wide-area collaborations, and practical actions required to solve broad-scope, time-critical problems. The competition was sponsored by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), a research organization of the United States Department of Defense. Congress authorized DARPA to award cash prizes to further DARPA’s mission to sponsor revolutionary, high-payoff research that bridges the gap between fundamental discoveries and their use for national security.
Under the rules of the competition, the $40,000 challenge award would be granted to the first team to submit the locations of 10 moored, 8-foot, red, weather balloons at 10 previously undisclosed fixed locations in the continental United States. The balloons were to be placed in readily accessible locations visible from nearby roads.
DARPA selected the date of the competition to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the Internet.
Contents
Winning strategy
The MIT Red Balloon Challenge Team won the competition in under 9 hours.[1] The MIT team used a technique similar to multi-level marketing to recruit participants, with the prize money to be distributed up the chain of participants leading to successful balloon spottings, and all prize income remaining after distribution to participants to be given to charity.[2] The team's strategy for public collaboration in finding the balloons was explained on their website:
We're giving $2000 per balloon to the first person to send us the correct coordinates, but that's not all -- we're also giving $1000 to the person who invited them. Then we're giving $500 whoever invited the inviter, and $250 to whoever invited them, and so on... (see how it works). It might play out like this. Alice joins the team, and we give her an invite link like http://balloon.media.mit.edu/alice. Alice then e-mails her link to Bob, who uses it to join the team as well. We make a http://balloon.media.mit.edu/bob link for Bob, who posts it to Facebook. His friend Carol sees it, signs up, then twitters about http://balloon.media.mit.edu/carol. Dave uses Carol's link to join... then spots one of the DARPA balloons! Dave is the first person to report the balloon's location to us, and the MIT Red Balloon Challenge Team is the first to find all 10. Once that happens, we send Dave $2000 for finding the balloon. Carol gets $1000 for inviting Dave, Bob gets $500 for inviting Carol, and Alice gets $250 for inviting Bob. The remaining $250 is donated to charity.Prior to the competition numerous people had discussed possible strategies,[3] including satellite photography, aerial photography and crowdsourcing to detect balloons, as well as the possibility of misinformation campaigns to stop other teams from winning.
Verified balloon locations
Balloon locations
The officially-verified coordinates of the balloons,[4] listed by their tag numbers, were:
- Balloon 1: Union Square, San Francisco, California 37°47′16″N 122°24′26″W / 37.78778°N 122.40722°W
- Balloon 2: Chaparral Park, Scottsdale, Arizona 33°30′36″N 111°54′29″W / 33.51°N 111.90806°W
- Balloon 3: Tonsler Park, Charlottesville, Virginia [5] 38°1′34″N 78°29′28″W / 38.02611°N 78.49111°W
- Balloon 4: Chase Palm Park, Santa Barbara, California 34°24′51″N 119°41′5″W / 34.41417°N 119.68472°W
- Balloon 5: Lee Park, Memphis, Tennessee 35°8′17″N 90°3′43″W / 35.13806°N 90.06194°W
- Balloon 6: Collins Avenue, Miami, Florida 25°54′14″N 80°7′31″W / 25.90389°N 80.12528°W
- Balloon 7: Glasgow Park, Christiana, Delaware 39°36′30″N 75°43′51″W / 39.60833°N 75.73083°W
- Balloon 8: Katy Park, Katy, Texas 29°48′56″N 95°48′15″W / 29.81556°N 95.80417°W
- Balloon 9: Waterfront Park, Portland, Oregon 45°30′44″N 122°40′28″W / 45.51222°N 122.67444°W
- Balloon 10: Centennial Park, Atlanta, Georgia 33°45′33″N 84°23′33″W / 33.75917°N 84.3925°W
Top Ten Teams
In the final standings [6] the top ten teams reported are:
Place Name Hometown # Balloons Date/Time 1 MIT Red Balloon Challenge Team Cambridge, MA 10 6:52:41 PM 2 GTRI "I Spy a Red Balloon" Team Atlanta, GA 9 6:59:11 PM 3 Christian Rodriguez and Tara Chang (Red Balloon Race) Cambridge, MA 8 6:52:54 PM 4 Dude It's a Balloon Glen Rock, NJ 8 7:42:41 PM 5 Groundspeak Geocachers Seattle, WA 7 4:02:23 PM 6 Army of Eyes ‐ Mutual Mobile, Inc. Austin, TX 7 4:33:20 PM 7 Team DeciNena Evergreen, CO 7 6:46:37 PM 8 Anonymous Anonymous 7 7:16:51 PM 9 Nerdfighters Missoula, MT 7 8:19:24 PM 10 iSchools DARPA Challenge Team State College, PA 6 6:13:08 PM References
- ^ "MIT Red Balloon Team Wins DARPA Network Challenge". DARPA. https://networkchallenge.darpa.mil/darpanetworkchallengewinner2009.pdf. Retrieved 2009-12-06.
- ^ "How It Works". MIT Red Balloon Challenge Team. http://balloon.mit.edu/mit/payoff/.
- ^ Adrian Hon (October 31, 2009). "How to Win the DARPA Network Challenge". Mssv. http://mssv.net/2009/10/31/how-to-win-the-darpa-network-challenge/.
- ^ "DARPA Network Challenge Balloon Coordinates". DARPA. https://networkchallenge.darpa.mil/Coordinates.pdf. Retrieved 2009-12-13.
- ^ "Ten red balloons– and one’s in Charlottesville!". The Hook. Saturday December 5, 2009. http://www.readthehook.com/blog/index.php/2009/12/05/ten-red-balloons-and-ones-in-charlottesville/.
- ^ "DARPA Network Challenge Final Standings". DARPA. https://networkchallenge.darpa.mil/FinalStandings.pdf. Retrieved 2010-10-07.
External links
Categories:- Science competitions
- Crowdsourcing
- Computer science competitions
- Challenge awards
- 2009 in the United States
- Balloons
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