Wow, that was fast!
A team of researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has won $40,000 from Darpa after correctly identifying the locations of 10 weather balloons launched across the country.
The agency received more than 900 submissions Saturday, with 4,300 participants signing up for the competition — much higher than the 2,000 it said it expected on Friday. It now plans to reach out to the MIT team, as well as other competitors, to get a better sense of what worked and what didn’t.
The MIT team is not going to keep any of the money. They’re splitting the prize money among the people who helped them find the balloons — and donating any unclaimed money to charity.
Dozens of teams organized to find the red balloons. The challenge was to be the first to submit the locations of 10 moored, 8-foot, red, weather balloons at 10 fixed locations in the continental United States. The balloons were in readily accessible locations and visible from nearby roads.
The balloons were tethered most often in coastal cities, including a prominent perch on Collins Avenue in Miami and another in San Francisco’s Union Square. One was moored just a few blocks from my apartment in Portland (I didn’t have a clue until today).
