DARPA Balloon Hunt Challenge

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12/11/2009

Dec. 11, 2009

DARPA Balloon Hunt Challenge

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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.

Produced by Flora Lichtman, Correspondent and Managing Editor, Video

Guests

Riley Crane
Society in Science Post-Doctoral Fellow

Human Dynamics Group

MIT Media Lab

Cambridge, Massachusetts

Discussion

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