You can help by sharing the video on Facebook & Twitter. Here’s a sample Tweet you can copy & paste:

“Cool! Giant Balloon Dinosaurs! Help get #ELASTICPARK on the road with a #pepsirefresh grant! http://bit.ly/6PkxHx PLS RT”

Thanks so much for all of your help & support during the DARPA Challenge. We learned quite a bit, and are hoping to apply that knowledge towards getting this grant & get Elastic Park on the road!

We also were able to accurately weed out false positives with our tight-knit (read: trustworthy) networks. Several balloonhq.com members were called upon to verify sightings in person. We also were taunted with a false report of a balloon up here in Rochester (possibly created to drive us outside and away from our machines) but assist was requested and retweeted by several Rochester-area groups of twitterers. I’ll post a full list of credits/thank yous in the next few days- but I’ve been rocking a nasty cold since last week (so I’ll apologize in advance for the rambling.)

A few other things I’m proud of, I love the DARPA Flying Cupcake video explaining the contest and our strategy that we made at the wee hours of Friday (probably at least partially explains my cold) Larry’s voice was spot on for the delivery, and my visuals- while simple- I believe were quite effective at getting the idea across. People have mentioned how much they love the flying cupcake diagram that we’ve designed a flying cupcake sketch t-shirt available through Larry’s shop online.

It was a somewhat risky strategy, The Register referred to us as being naive and fluffy, but it did what we wanted it to- it made our team approachable by non-techies and unforgettable in a crowd of groups with names that were all riffs of “DARPA, Red Balloons”. We were more marketable to other networks with large reach, like Cupcakes Take The Cake, and getting tweeted about by Jen from Cake Wrecks (which now just leaves getting a project of ours mentioned on the Daily Show for my list…there’s always Monday ) OH! And speaking of news- ABC, PRI, as well as the Register and others that we achieved (thanks Sally!) were a boon as well.

What we didn’t do

One thing we didn’t do was to create false data, even though I am a photoshop goddess and I could have made photos that were truly convincing- and we could have spent last month creating fake online identities to stump other teams- and we have access to thousands of balloon artists who could have at a moments notice put up false balloons across the country- We didn’t. Our goal was to get people working together, and to do so would have tarnished any cupcake we would have made. Larry’s whole drive as an artist is creating community (as was the topic of his recent TEDx talk).  We chose rather to use the talents of our fellow artists to create mini-giant flying cupcakes and engage the public outside of the twitterverse. Wynn Bell, a creator of one of our armada of cupcakes and was in Portland, even verified the #9 balloon in person for us.

So will our do-goodedness do in our Giant Flying Cupcake? I sure hope not. There’s still the possibility that the cupcake could get off the ground, but a project of this magnitude requires funding. We were hoping that maybe a national company looking for some positive exposure wouldn’t mind sponsoring a tasty flying treat- or perhaps a town looking to do something unforgettable for an anniversary would be interested- just as the good folks over in Sodus Bay, NY were interested in making a splash with the Fantastic Flying Octopus that Larry and his crew created for them in the summer of 2003. (Yeah, shameless plug, but hey- you never know!)

So it’s late, and I need some sleep. If you’d like to keep in touch with us on upcoming endeavors- you really should follow Larry Moss, @airigami. If you don’t mind the ramblings of an easily distracted, often thoughtful, highly-opinionated woman who likes to make stuff & occasionally brag about her amazing children/yard sale finds, feel free to follow me too @craftyb (you have been warned!)

Peace.

Kel

I still stand firm that the challenge could have been completed much sooner (and would have been a better test of the internet as an intelligence gathering tool) if the green eyed money menace wasn’t mucking things up. Though I’m not sure how you’d inspire people to do it without tempting them with $. I’m gonna go sleep on that.

Happy Birthday Internets!
<3 Kel

Basically we are looking for 10 red weather balloons that look like the ones at left. They will be moored across the continental US at locations near roadways. We need to ultimately get their GPS location, but we can figure that out from a rough street address.

IF YOU HAVE SPOTTED A BALLOON IN PERSON, PLEASE CONTACT US DIRECTLY

Larry Moss
Airigami, Founder and Creative Director
Phone: 585.359.8695
Email: larry@airigami.com

If you have come across a sighting via “data mining” ie, found it on twitter etc. please let us know by entering the info on this form.

Do not tweet/post publicly any of the information you have, or everyone will see it! GoodLuck to all of the other teams that are out there!

Flying Cupcake Spottings!

If you’re here because you’ve spotted a mini-giant flying cupcake, click here to join our Flickr group and add photos. If you need more information, you can visit Larry’s airigami website.

Of course we like to play with the best (and the rest) of them too- so we’re telling you straight out that we’re going to be putting up extra balloons for people to spy- not just plain old big red balloons- but mini-giant cupcakes. You know- so you can get a taste of what a giant one might look like WHEN WE WIN! ha ha ha ha.

And unlike DARPA, we’re going to share the love. Prizes:

• (10) FIRST PRIZES:  Submit a photo of yourself pointing to one of the mini-giant cupcakes (submit via our flickr group) We will select 1 winner from each mini-giant cupcake location.
• (1) GRAND PRIZE: To the first person who submits photos of themselves pointing to each of the 10 mini-giant cupcakes. (Photoshopping allowed & encouraged- we certainly wouldn’t want to add to the carbon footprint of this project by having you drive from say, NY to CA- oh! I’ve may have said too much!) Submit via our flickr group
• (1) MOST HONORABLE MENTION: Impress me. Make me laugh- come up with a fabulous flying cupcake themed image (video? baked good?) and submit it to the (submit via our flickr group)

We’ll be sending a tweets out about the fellow balloon artists who will be creating the mini-giant cupcakes- so follow our twitter feeds: @airigami, @craftyb and of COURSE @findredballoons . We’ll let you know what’s in the prize packs once we nail that down. Needless to say, they’ll be lots of fun, and we should be able to get them out to you just in time for Festivus!

Oh and while you’re all looking and having fun messing around with digital pictures, don’t forget the reason we’re here! HELP US FIND THOSE RED BALLOONS SO WE CAN BUILD A NON-MINI GIANT CUPCAKE!!

Back to work…

-Kel

I think it’s a little too early in the week to be posting photos of the balloons to avoid copycat balloons- but again even with the frosting we’re putting on it, this is a military experiment in social networking, maybe they WANT people to put up decoys…

It will be interesting to see how it unfolds this weekend.

Alternatively, the prize may actually be scooped by some naive and fluffy group like the charitables or the flying-cupcake mob – though a group of the first and darker sort might also credibly pretend to be of this type. (via The Register)

NAIVE & FLUFFY?! I’ll take sweet, airy perhaps- but we are serious about finding these red balloons! Read more about how you can help us out.

http://www.flickr.com/groups/flyingcupcake/

I’ve opened up a flickr group for anyone who feels like playing with photoshop. You can grab a transparent image off of the Flying Cupcake-inator page (it’s already cleaned up so making your own image should be, er, well cake!) upload it to your flickr account and then join the flying cupcake group/add to the pool.

Just do me a favor and keep it clean, there may be children swimming in there. Where will you find a flying cupcake?

Get this awesome flying cupcake to appear on top of your favorite website…

What are you waiting for cupcake? Go on and tweet about it! The challenge is only 6 days away and we need to summon the power of every internet meme we can think of… Any suggestions?

You know you want to help us!

I truly think this art project is the best way to share the wealth for this contest.  But in order for it to “get off the ground” we’ll need the eyes and ears of as many folks as possible.

Be sure to follow our twitter feeds: @findredballoons , @airigami, and @craftyb to get the latest updates, and RT any of our DARPA Challenge tweets. If you’re really excited about our project- post a link on your favorite social marketing site. More info will be coming soon!

Thanks!

Kel