Help us find the red balloons and we'll make a giant flying cupcake!

To mark the 40th anniversary of the Internet, DARPA has announced the DARPA Network Challenge, a competition that will explore the role the Internet and social networking plays in the timely communication, wide area team-building and urgent mobilization required to solve broad scope, time-critical problems.

The challenge is to be the first to submit the locations of ten moored, 8 foot, red weather balloons located at ten fixed locations in the continental United States. Balloons will be in readily accessible locations and visible from nearby roadways.  (from http://networkchallenge.darpa.mil/)

At first glance, this contest is awesome- what a way to showcase what the Internet does best- connecting people together to share information. And to kick it up a notch, they added in a $40,000 cash prize- (here’s where surprisingly enough it starts to get uncool) The prize can only be awarded to one person.

That just seems silly to me, a hindrance to the very collaboration they are attempting to create.

So to be successful in this contest you need to have a reason for people to want to share information with you. Why on earth would someone help YOU win 40k?   Some options…

• Promise lots of people a piece of the pot – Sounds like a sort of Survivor-inspired alliance thing. Meh. Not very productive- why should they trust you/think you’re going to win? And that’s alot of taxes to be paid on the initial winnings to then divvy up what’s left…
• Donate to a charity - Better, but then which charity? I have a feeling there will be quite a few folks trying this. I think it’s a good way to go- but are you going to get enough people behind your chosen cause? Or will efforts be scattered to several different charities- dulling the efficacy…hmm
  
• Do something fun and unforgettable with the money -  I think the best thing the cash prize could be spent on would be something fun and amazing that gives people joy just from experiencing it- even if they only get to see it online. Money comes and goes- but something amazing will stay in your memory and  make you giggle and smile- even when the Internet celebrates it’s 80th birthday.

So I’ve decided this contest is silly. But I think it needs to be sillier, (in a good way.) My dear friend, Larry Moss, has a long history of creating breathtaking pieces of public artwork. He’s also responsible for one of the first 50 non-academic sites on the web, ironically enough, balloonhq.com, a community he founded online over 18 years ago.

I think that we should invest our web savvy and social media prowess into helping Larry win the contest in order to fund the creation of a piece of temporary public sculpture that celebrates the anniversary of the birth of our beloved internet in style…

Let’s use the winnings to create a giant flying cupcake built entirely out of balloons!

Yes. I’m completely serious.

What better way to celebrate a birthday than with balloons? Hundreds of community volunteers would help to inflate and assemble balloons in this giant sculpture, thousands would see it fly in the sky, and perhaps millions more could view the whole process online with streaming web-cams and YouTube videos. This way everyone gets a piece of the pie, er, cake.

There’s lots to figure out as far as the contest goes, but dudes- I need to get some sleep. You can follow our progress on on twitter: @findredballoons, @craftyb (that’s me- oh, Hi! I’m Kelly Cheatle ) and @airigami (that’s Larry) and we’ll keep you posted with updates as best we can.

I hope you’ll join us!