Fancy playing a game where you get to hunt subs, and help the American military code its next generation of underwater attack drones? Boy, are you in luck!
"Greetings Starfighter. You have been recruited by the Star League to defend the frontier against Xur and the Kodan Armada..."
You know, I didn't even have to look that quote up. That's how deep that movie - The Last Starfighter - wormed into my head as a kid. The idea that just by being good at playing a game could get you reruited into a battle beyond the freaking stars was simply awesome.
And, now, it's kind of inspiring the way DARPA - the Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency - is running its latest military project for the DoD in the US.
The project revolves around a new, unmanned aquatic drone designed to track enemy submarines. Called ACTUV (for Anti-submarine Warfare Continuous Trail Unmanned Vessel). DARPA's released a free simulator package for the drone, with ever-mounting tracking challenges that link through to an online leader board. Here's what the site says:
"You are invited to put yourself into the virtual driver’s seat of one of several ACTUV configurations and show the world how you can use its capabilities to follow a submarine. Of course you won’t be the only ship at sea so you’ll have to safely navigate among the commercial traffic, and the target sub has some tricks up his sleeve so watch out!"
It looks pretty neat, and we're a sucker for submarine action, but what's really interesting is what happens after you complete each challenge. The sim asks if you're happy to have your results sent back to DARPA for analysis. DARPA's actually hoping to fine tune its database using the wide world of gamers out there.
Just think, a line of code inspired your own 1337 sub-hunting skills could one day be out there in the open ocean, trailing a Russian Akula... keen.
Issue: 137 | June, 2012