User:Miestersean/DARPA Network Challenge Sandbox
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. The challenge was designed to help the military generate ideas for operating under a range of circumstances, such as natural disasters.[1] 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.
Specifics of the Competition
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. The balloons were deployed at 10:00 AM Eastern Time on December 5, 2009 and scheduled to be taken down at 5:00 PM. DARPA was prepared to deploy them for a second day and wait for up to a week for a team to find all of the balloons.
The contest was announced only about a month before the start date. This limited the amount of time teams had to prepare. The ability of many to do so showed the effectiveness of mass and social media to quickly distribute information and organize people.[2]
DARPA selected the date of the competition to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the Internet.
Results
As mentioned above, DARPA was prepared to deploy the balloons for a second day and accept submissions for up to a week until a team found all 10 balloons. However, the MIT Red Balloon Challenge Team won the competition in under 9 hours.[3] In second place was a team from the Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI), who located nine balloons. Additionally, two teams found eight balloons, five found seven, and the iSchools team (which represented Pennsylvania State University, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, University of Pittsburgh, Syracuse University, and University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill), whose strategy is described below, finished tenth with six balloons.[2] In table form, the top ten teams were:[4]
| 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 |
Winning strategy
The winning 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.[5] 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,[6] 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
The officially-verified coordinates of the balloons,[7] 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 / 33.51000°N 111.90806°W
- Balloon 3: Tonsler Park, Charlottesville, Virginia [8] 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 84.39250°W
Related Challenges
Inspired by the success of the DARPA Network Challenge, DARPA launched the Shredder Challenge in 2011. This competition aimed to explore methods to reconstruct documents shredded by a variety of paper shredding techniques. As with the DARPA Network Challenge, some teams used crowdsourcing to solicit human help in reconstructing the documents.[9] The winning team used a combination of computer-vision algorithm to suggest fragment pairings to human assemblers for verification.[10]
In January 2012, the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine launched the MyHeartMap Challenge to map Automatic External Defibrillators (AEDs) in the city of Philladelphia.[11] According to the organizer Dr. Raina Merchant, "DARPA succeeded with locating red balloons. AEDs are a natural extension of a brilliant idea."[12]
References
- ^ "MIT wins $40,000 prize in nationwide balloon-hunt contest". CNN. 2009. Retrieved 2012-02-21.
- ^ a b John C. Tang, Manuel Cebrian, Nicklaus A. Giacobe, Hyun-Woo Kim, Taemie Kim, Douglas "Beaker" Wickert (2011). "Reflecting on the DARPA Red Balloon Challenge". Communications of the ACM. 54 (4): 78-85.
{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) - ^ "MIT Red Balloon Team Wins DARPA Network Challenge" (PDF). DARPA. Retrieved 2009-12-06.
- ^ "DARPA Network Challenge Final Standings" (PDF). DARPA. Retrieved 2010-10-07.
- ^ "How It Works". MIT Red Balloon Challenge Team.
- ^ Adrian Hon (October 31, 2009). "How to Win the DARPA Network Challenge". Mssv.
- ^ "DARPA Network Challenge Balloon Coordinates" (PDF). DARPA. Retrieved 2009-12-13.
- ^ "Ten red balloons– and one's in Charlottesville!". The Hook. Saturday December 5, 2009.
{{cite web}}: Check date values in:|date=(help) - ^ "Crowdsourcing the 'most challenging puzzle ever". CNET. November 17, 2011. Retrieved 2011-12-01.
- ^ Drummond, Katie (December 2, 2011). "Programmers Shred Pentagon's Paper Puzzle Challenge". Wired. Retrieved December 5, 2011.
{{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in:|publisher=(help) - ^ McCullough, Marie (January 31, 2012). "Global contest will lead to help during heart attacks". Philadelphia Enquirer. Retrieved 2012-02-02.
- ^ "MyHeartMap Challenge Media Page". University of Pennsylvania. Retrieved 2012-02-03.