This contest from DARPA caught my eye because it involves weather balloons, the Internet, and social networking. WUWT is poised to help due to our reach, and because we have lots of keen eyed surfacestations.org volunteers with GPS and cameras.
This prize would be enough money to put a full page ad about climate in a major media outlet. Or, all balloon locators could equally split the winnings with me as facilitator. All you have to do is locate the weather balloons and get the lat/lon to me. The idea of this contest is to use social networking to locate them and win. Once the balloons are launched on December 5th, we have 9 days to find them. I think there’s a good chance WUWT readers can pull this off pretty quickly.
The way to do this (without tipping off competitors) is to post a notice in comments, saying you have a located one, and leave an email address where you can be contacted.
If WUWT readers think this is a good idea, I’ll register the website and we’ll give it a go. I also welcome strategies. My only question (which doesn’t seem to be delineated in the announcement) is how is DARPA going to label real balloons from regular red ones commonly available and used for promotions? I’ve sent them a query.
Here are the details:
From the rules:
The challenge is to locate ten moored red weather balloons located at ten fixed locations in the continental United States. 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 (local time) 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. In the event that one or more balloons is never displayed, this fact will be noted on the event website and the rules adjusted accordingly.
DARPA ANNOUNCES NEW CHALLENGE COMPETITION
The DARPA Network Challenge Will Explore How Broad-Scope Problems Can Be Solved Using Internet-based Technologies.
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) today announced the DARPA Network Challenge to mark the 40th anniversary of the Internet. The competition requires participants to discover the exact position of 10 large, red weather balloons that DARPA will place in undisclosed locations across the continental United States. The first person to identify the location of all the balloons will win a $40,000 cash prize. The balloons will be positioned on December 5, 2009.
“It is fitting for DARPA to announce this competition on the anniversary of the day that the first message was sent over the ARPANET, the precursor to the Internet,” said Dr. Regina E. Dugan, who made the announcement at a conference celebrating the anniversary. “In the 40 years since this breakthrough, the Internet has become an integral part of society and the global economy. The DARPA Network Challenge explores the unprecedented ability of the Internet to bring people together to solve tough problems.”
The DARPA Network Challenge is open to individuals of all ages, reflecting DARPA’s interest in attracting students to pursue careers in the areas of science and technology, including emerging specialties in the social sciences. Open to participants worldwide, the Challenge enables collaboration across borders, mobilizing individuals and groups to address difficult problems aided by the Internet.
This is the latest example of DARPA’s interest in reaching nontraditional sources of ideas and talent. The Grand Challenge competitions were started in 2004 to foster the development of autonomous robotic vehicle technology for use on the battlefield. The competition model for stimulating technological development enabled significant strides that will someday keep our men and women in uniform out of harm’s way.
“The DARPA Network Challenge taps into the same fresh thinking that made the earlier competitions a success,” said Dr. Norman Whitaker, who led DARPA’s most recent Challenge. “Future innovation depends on the upcoming generation of technologists who are discovering new, collaborative ways to approach problems that were not dreamt of 40 years ago.”
The 10 balloons will be placed in publicly accessible locations in the continental United States and will be on display for one day (December 5th) during daylight hours. The first participant to identify the latitude and longitude of all 10 balloons will receive the cash prize.
Event details can be found at www.darpa.mil/networkchallenge and updates on Twitter.com/DARPA_News.
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Any idea on how high up these balloons will fly? Does the observer have to contact the DARPA person at the site?
I assume there would be access to the mooring point. Otherwise your GPS measurement could be rather far off unless you have multiple measurement points. These days, without Selective Availability, GPS is good to within 100 meters, worst case, 30 meters typical. Differential can get down to a few meters, hard to use. WAAS was supposed to be good to 10 meters, but doesn’t seem to work that well on my units. Most receivers can display DMS, some only dd.ddd which requires conversion.
We need a standard reporting method. Perhaps email to surface stations?
Whatever happened to the project that needed a bunch of volunteers to input data? I signed up, got several emails telling me that there was a slight delay, then nothing.
The DARPA gang is “above average” and probably has a plan to defeat any pranksters who can afford to put up a large weather balloon of their own. I can think of plenty of ways to mark a balloon or the string it’s attached to that would be impossible copy in 6 hours.
“If a team of pranksters were to put up 90 decoy balloons, the contest would become very difficult to win for anyone but the pranksters.”
DARPA needs to prepare a set of distinct and unusually patterned balloons, and not post a picture of them until a few days before the launch, to make the creation of similar decoys impossible within the time frame. And/or there could be a “string” of three balloons, each only mildly unusual (i.e., they’d be off-the-shelf items), but whose acquisition and deployment would be difficult in a short time frame.
This is a problem that requires social networking.
the balloons will go up for one day visible from a roadway and DARPA representatives. Because the position must be fixed rather precisely you can expect that darpa will do it very close to a roadway and not in the middle of some field. Basically you need people in cars with GPS systems and with a way to record the coordinates and report them in a timely fashion.
1. BEFORE the contest starts you need to understand what kind of coverage your social network provides. What routes do you travel every day? Upload a
‘digital version of your daily route’ Then figure out which routes are not covered. Damn thats a lot of roadway!!! expect darpa to pick some mix of heavily travelled and lightly travelled roads. the winning team will recruit people so they get greater coverage. There isnt any real time to go balloon hunting on the day of the event. Its about planning to MAXIMIZE coverage BEFORE the day of the event.
So you need open street map ( or some kind stret map/roadmap data)
You need to know who is going to help and where they usually drive
Then you need to recruit to fill out your coverage for the day of the event.
The last part is the hardest..
I’ve been wondering what DARPA hopes to get for its 40 Gs. Probably it’s, ideas on ways to isolate the wheat from the internet chaff or noise.
The balloons will be MOORED. They will not fly. See the DARPA site. Here is a list of launch stations as of 2005: http://www.ofcm.gov/fmh3/pdf/11-app-c.pdf
Note that lat/lon is included in the PDF
Five of the stations lie at 40N (40th anniversary)
Sign me up! Sounds like fun.
Any idea if DARPA will be giving clues (explicit and/or hidden)?
On absolutely flat ground your visibility (local horizon) is about 2 miles. The calculation for figuring your visual horizon is :
1.17 * sqrt (eye height) = horizon distance in nautical miles.
http://boatsafe.com/nauticalknowhow/distance.htm
In this particular case the highest object would be the balloon. Lets just guess it is moored at 50′ altitude. Its visual horizon would the sum of its horizon distance plus the local horizon of the viewer.
A 50 ft tall object in flat terrain (baring trees and buildings blocking the view) would be visible for at least 6 nautical miles, and if your visual horizon of 2 miles intersects its horizon if you are looking in that direction you could see it at almost 8 miles distance. Obviously your visual horizon is much greater if you can go to any high terrain, or structure like the top of a parking garage, apartment balcony etc.
If you were on high ground say 100′ above average terrain you could see it in favorable conditions at a distance of almost 20 miles in good visibility and lighting.
I think there will be a place for both data mining the internet for reports and intentional searches. If first thing in the morning everyone interested in this task went to a high place with a pair of binoculars and “glassed the area” like hunters would do or searchers for a downed aircraft would do, you would in a matter of minutes scan 10,000’s of square miles of the continental U.S. for likely candidates.
In search and rescue training program for “Managing the Search Function” they teach you that multiple searches with moderate probability of success, have a higher over all probability of success than a single very fine resolution but slow search.
Applying that strategy then would mean that periodically during the 6 hour display time (say every 15 minutes to an hour) everyone interested in the search should make an intentional effort to view the largest possible area near where they are.
I think there are three search strategies to apply.
1. Multiple intentional visual searches from any vantage point with good visibility near where people are during the time window.
2. Random observation (opportunistic sighting) as people move around.
3. Intentional web data mining of things like face book and twitter etc.
A good reporting system for timely verification of coordinates and reporting would also be needed.
Larry
My personal assumption is that DARPA is trying to establish a probability of success for using the web and social networking to locate something of interest. Or perhaps how to optimize such a use of the internet and mobilizing an internet search.
It could be any item but the obvious ideas that come to mind in today’s world would be like the FBI’s most wanted lists, The TV series Most Wanted. The National Weather service storm spotter system used to track severe storms and damage reports, the Amber alert system etc.
If there was a need to locate someone or some thing, very quickly ,how effective would be an open appeal to a large number of popular social networking resources be in finding it?
Say for instance a terror suspect or someone who was waiting for an organ transplant who was not reachable by other means, a missing person, a downed aircraft, a meteor or fragment from a known re-entry etc.
The ground tracking of re-entry fragments from the Columbia shuttle is an example where thousands of people reported sightings that allowed ground track searches to locate large amounts of crash debris in spite of the huge area it covered.
The recent trend for “you report” submissions to news organizations is a good example of how someone is probably in a position to observe just about any event you can imagine. All you need to do is make them aware their observation is useful, and provide them an effective way to report it.
Larry
Red40k.com will be setup to take balloon location submissions and paypal $3000 to the first email address associated with a correct balloon location, if we win the $40k.
David L. Hagen (14:13:53) :
Recommend clarifying if this is one arc-minute error in each of latitude and longitude, or if this is an error of one arc-minute in radius from the prescribed location…………………………………………………………………..
You know you’re on a science site when someone debates ad nauseum about the rules! ;~P
Don S. (06:01:41) :
The balloons will be MOORED. They will not fly. See the DARPA site. Here is a list of launch stations as of 2005: http://www.ofcm.gov/fmh3/pdf/11-app-c.pdf
Note that lat/lon is included in the PDF
Five of the stations lie at 40N (40th anniversary)
Are you suggesting that the balloons will be moored near a pre-existing actual launch site? That does make some sense. Employess already have the materials. If so, I’ll drive to Topeka.
How high are they going to moor the balloons? From experience launching these pilot balloons (the one pictured is a pilot balloon, not a radiosonde balloon otherwise known as a weather balloon), once they get 150-200 feet above the ground they are very hard to see. And the one for Salem Oregon is going to be even harder to see because at the the location given on the PDF file by Tim above there is nothing but gravel pits and businesses http://tinyurl.com/ygkzttj I believe the actual launch site is a mile to the southeast of that location at the Salem Airport. Just make sure if you are driving you keep your eyes on the road not on the sky.
I was just checking the official rules and if you spot the balloon you have to enter the lat/long where you spotted it and you have to be correct within one arc minute (about a mile). So bring your GPS, since the launch site for Salem OR is at least a mile from where they say it is giving the official location will invalidate your entry.
A tribute to Nena… 99 Red Ballons!
Since the aviation industry is one of the main targets of AGW witch-burners, there should be plenty of WUWT sympathy in the flying community. They’re the ones to cover the area.
I live in Canada and although I see plenty of hot air from the south, and a bubble or two from time to time, I’ve yet to see a balloon.
I’m a little surprised that no-one from RC has stopped by to ridicule such a thread on #1 Science blog. They must be up to something.
99 red ballons tell a story of 99 balloons floating into the air, triggering an apocalyptic overreaction by military forces.
Funny how anything “floating” in the air can trigger an apocalyptic overreaction…
If you do get a team together I wish you the best in this Anthony. It would be fun to follow what is happening no matter whre the money goes, to the ad or to the team.
Don S.
I counted about 105 launch sites.
With that number, it may be possible to recruit one person per launch site.
For those so skilled, mapping that list would be helpful.
DARPA offices are located at:
3701 North Fairfax Drive
Arlington, VA 22203-1714
Same for DSO, ITPO, Microsystems technology office, Strategic Technology office and Tactical Technology office
Applying the well established social principle of bureaucratic inertia, I hypothesize that the probability of balloons being tethered by DARPA personnel will be inversely proportional to the distance from this location.
Another location:
Executive Conference Center
3601 Wilson Blvd, Suite 600
Arlington , Virginia 22203
For DARPA Events in December, note:
Mid-Atlantic SBIR/STTR Conference, November 30 – December 2, 2009 in Waterfront Place Hotel, Morgantown, West Virginia.
DMC 2009 November 30 – December 3, 2009 at Hilton Orlando in Orlando, Florida.
Can anyone find other addresses for DARPA personnel?
Competitors:
James Irwin is a group that is looking to use any winnings to give to peace initiatives.
or on facebook
Follow DarpaBalloon.com on twitter
Their tasks:
* Someone to manage our Twitter account
* Someone to manage our Facebook outreach
* Someone to manage our Myspace outreach
* Someone to manage email campaigns
* Someone to manage ad buys to increase traffic to this site
* Someone to help find organizations interested in endorsing this site
* Someone to build program to manage hunts on the big day
* Someone to help improve this site
* Someone to help port this site to Amazon cloud
* Someone to help build program for collecting anr verifying responses
Public List of DARPA phones
I have recovered two NWS weather balloons. They can be hard to find.
Don’t know if this was brought up before, but if WUWT participates in the event, it should be pointed out that the rules prohibit participation of U.S. government employees in the challenge. (I’m a U.S. government employee — sorry).
Ray (14:13:47) :
99 red ballons tell a story of 99 balloons floating into the air, triggering an apocalyptic overreaction by military forces.
Funny how anything “floating” in the air can trigger an apocalyptic overreaction…
One of my shipmates when I was in the Navy told me the story when he was stationed at Adak on the radiosonde team he and his buddy got bored and decided to have some fun. One night they inflated a pibal just enough so it would float about thirty feet in the air and the put a chem lite in it so it glowed an eerie green. It was a windy, foggy, rainy night and when they released the balloon it blew towards one of the higher security areas of the base the marines were responsible for. My friend said that the whole marine detachment went on full alert because no one could figure out what the green glowing bobbing object was. He said he was lucky the balloon blew out to sea and no evidence was found to connect it to him.