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• Find the Red Balloons
• Balloons: Work or Play
• Featured Member Portfolio

Kelly's proposed flying cupcake to be built after we win the DARPA red balloon challenge.

Find the Red Balloons

A couple weeks ago, DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency), announced a project to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Internet. And they're using balloons to do it.

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/)

What do you need to do to participate?

This is easy. There's no way to know where the red balloons will be. There may be one in your city, but you can't really plan for it. All you can do is keep your eyes open on December 5, 2009. If you see one, you can report it back to me. The balloons will only be available for a maximum of nine hours that day, weather permitting. The balloons may be released a day later if weather or some other interference is encountered.

DARPA has not said yet exactly how you'll be able to identify the balloons placed by them other than than to look for 8' red balloons in accessible areas, visible from major roads. They may have a DARPA name and/or logo on them. But who knows. They did say that all of the balloons will be accompanied by an official that will be able to present credentials to verify the legitimacy of a balloon. None of this is secret. It shouldn't be hard to find. They're performing a social media experiment, so they want the balloons to be found. What they're interested in is the dynamic of people sharing the information. If you send the exact location to me as soon as you find one or possibly even see it on your local news or something like that, let me know (moss@balloonhq.com). (Don't assume if you see it on TV that it's already been reported to me. It's likely that's the first place you'll see it.) I'll submit the location. What qualifies as exact location? Address, GPS coordinates, intersection. Ultimately it needs to be submitted in degree-minute-second format. If you can send it that way, great. If not, I should be able to take whatever you give me and convert it.

Examples of ways to get the location: The built-in compass app on the iPhone 3GS gives me coordinates in DMS format. There are dozens of other similar apps for the iPhone and other smart phones with GPS that will also give the location that way. Any handheld GPS should give the coordinates. And some car GPS units might give it also. You can also plug an address into Google Earth and have it find you. Then it gives you the coordinates that you're mouse is passing over in DMS format. So, really, anything you come up with to clearly identify the location should be good enough to get what we need.

Why should you help?

This should be a fun experiment. It will require the attentiveness of a lot of people and therefore a lot of people should be able to enjoy the fruits of a completed project. DARPA is offering a $40,000 prize to the first individual that reports the locations of all the balloons (or the largest number of them). The money should go toward a community project that everyone can enjoy. It should be a project in the spirit of the challenge. It should unite people across the country, celebrating the Internet, social media, and balloon art. Kelly Cheatle proposed a flying birthday cupcake made of balloons. I'm all for that. The $40K will go to covering the cost of creating the sculpture and housing the participating artists in the project. A good example of the project I have in mind would be the Fantastic Flying Octopus from a few years ago.

Let's give this a shot and see if we can win this challenge. It's not the winning that's important. It's doing something cool with the award that everyone can enjoy. Please help make this happen.

Balloons: Work or Play

I just received email from a BHQ subscriber with a question that irked me. It wasn't her question I had a problem with, but that others had her concerned enough to ask. The question was basically, "Is it ok for me to give out balloons?" Apparently, a local business made her feel that her sharing freely was somehow damaging to them. This actually comes up quite frequently. I hear it often from many BHQ lurkers. In fact, it comes up often enough that I have no fear that I'm singling out a particular person here.

I see nothing at all wrong with giving away your creations. I'm actually somewhat disgusted by the attitude that some people have that they should be protected from the newcomers and hobbyists to the art. The way I see it, if they're good, a hobbyist is no threat. If they aren't good, they should get good, or get into a business where they are offering something special for what they charge. And that doesn't mean that everyone selling balloons has to be the most amazing artist in the world. They just have to offer something that someone wants to pay for. I can give two relevant examples from unrelated fields.

1. I often try to do my own plumbing repair work. I'm not especially good at it. But a leaky faucet doesn't require that I get a handyman in. And the fact that I've repaired the leak, doesn't mean that a plumber is out of work. When I have a serious issue, I call someone, and I pay a lot of money for it. The hobbyist isn't out there trying to get high paying jobs doing balloon work. So they give away a few balloons. They're spreading the joy of balloons. Maybe they'd actually take the big job if it were offered, but someone doing a large enough event wants it to look good and is going to look for the professional business that can help them get what they need.
2. Millions of kids take piano lessons. That hasn't stopped millions of people from paying big money to go to professional concerts. Instead, it raises awareness and understanding of music. Maybe it raises the bar a little. That's good. It keeps the serious musicians working to offer something special. I want every kid in the world to learn to make things with balloons, just as they learn to draw with crayons. They'll have a greater appreciation for what I do. I've also had opportunities to hear incredible musicians for free. I still buy music. I've also hired musicians (and ballon artists, for that matter - and I can do that myself). Fear of someone else being good is just foolish.

I get really riled up when I hear about people getting upset at the spreading of art. Keep having fun and helping other people have fun.

Featured artist portfolio: Pieter van Engen

Helicopter by Pieter van Engen

Pieter van Engen of the Netherlands has a portfolio full of stunning scupltpures made from just a few balloons. Known in the Netherlands as De Ballonnenman (The BalloonMan), he recently won First Prize in the One-Balloon category at MilleniumJam 2008. He also took home 3rd place in the Multiple-Balloon category that same year. Check out his portfolio for some of his designs!

Visit the portfolio of Pieter van Engen

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