U pdate: 01/12/2010-- Now that the Balloon Challenge is complete, this site will continue to to provide links to the newest Challenges that come down the pike from DARPA. Check the NEWS link on the left navigation menu for more.

U pdate: 12/5/2009-- MIT WINS! Click on the NEWS link for more. Now that the Balloon Challenge is over, this site will continue to to provide links ot the newest Challenges that come down the pike from DARPA.

The US government is holding a competition. On December 5th ten RED weather balloons will be anchored in ten totally random locations around the US. Your mission is to find one--collectively, our mission is to find them all. $40,000 for the first place team. There will be no second place.

DARPA is the branch officially sponsoring the competition. This defense department off-shoot has begun handing out prize money in earnest in the last few years, bursting into the spot light most notably with the Grand Challenge and its cousin the Urban Challenge; competitions to create completely autonomous motor vehicles that could navigate a given outdoor route or a cityscape. With the success of that Challenge, DARPA continues to offer incentive to push existing tech to limits yet unseen.

So what did the brains in DC decide to call this one? The competition is the DARPA Network Challenge.

This time around, the competition is more about existing tools than building something from scratch. This time DARPA is curious about existing social networks. How well can we work together? How can we all, all of us, all 300 million residents of the US interact? How quickly? Will there be patterns? Will they be recognizable? How fast can we communicate? And most importantly, do YOU want to be a part of it?

We are The Balloon Challenge, team TBC. And we aim to win the DARPA Network Challenge. If we do, we split $40,000 between those members that get the right balloon locations to us the fastest. Everything you need will be here. We’ll point you to the tools, the rules and answer your questions. Becoming a member of Team TBC is easy. Just keep up with our Facebook group or follow us on Twitter, for every member who joins up on one of these social networks by the competition we’re donating a penny to The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society®!*