To mark the 40th anniversary of the Internet, Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) the research arm of the U.S. military, has launched the DARPA Network Challenge. The competition will test the role of the Internet and social networking in supporting timely communication, wide-area team-building, and urgent mobilization to solve broad, time-critical problems.

Image by Matthew Bowden

DARPA  challenges participants to be the first to submit the locations of 10 8-foot red weather balloons at 10 locations across the continental United States. The balloons will aloft one day, Saturday, December 5, but teams will have until 12:00 PM (ET) Dec. 14, to collect the locations of any balloons they didn’t spot, and submit their entries.

Participants must register on the competition website, and can find there full details and rules.

Filed under: K-12 Education News