Darpa’s got ambitious goals when it comes to revolutionizing the outmoded, expensive process of defense manufacturing. The Pentagon’s blue-sky research arm wants fast-tracked timelines and widespread collaboration, all facilitated by web 2.0. And they’re looking to assemble an army of teenaged brains to help them do it.

The agency’s putting $10 million into a new program, Manufacturing Experimentation and Outreach, or Mentor, that aims to “develop and motivate a next generation cadre of system designers and manufacturing innovators.”

Darpa’s looking for legions of high school students with a firm grasp on tools like Facebook and Twitter, who can work in teams “within a single high school and across multiple high schools” to design and develop “cyber-electro-mechanical systems” like go-carts, robots and even unmanned aircraft. Social networks, the agency hopes, can facilitate collaboration as well as inter-group competitions.

Mentor is only the latest Darpa program hoping to transform today’s youth into tomorrow’s Pentagon hot shots. Earlier this year, the agency requested proposals that would boost the number of teens pursuing bona fide geekdom. That program was catalyzed by concerns over the country’s “ability to compete in the increasingly internationalized stage.” This time around, Darpa’s looking for the brawniest brains worldwide, noting that “substantial participation by foreign high schools is essential to leveraging best-of-kind talent.”

But teens won’t just be handed cash money and flung into the development biz. Darpa’s looking for non-profits, academic institutions and businesses to develop proposals, and then spearhead participation from schools and provide them with the necessary manufacturing equipment. And Darpa’s thinking big: the agency wants 1,000 schools involved by the program’s fourth year.

And lest ambitious adolescent geeks think they’ll make a killing from their programs, designs or unmanned amphibious go-carts, Darpa’s making one thing very clear: you work for us.

“DARPA desires to receive complete, fully functional algorithms, source code, documentation, binaries, and test use cases,” the agency solicitation reads. “[And] Unlimited Rights to all deliverables… to enable their industry-wide promulgation in the course of and subsequent to this program.”

Photo: U.S Department of Energy Office of Science

See Also:

• Darpa: U.S. Geek Shortage Is National Security Risk
• Darpa Chief: Fix America’s Critical Geek Shortage
• Marines Ban Twitter, MySpace, Facebook
• WTF? Military Web 2.0 Report Actually Making Sense
• The Pentagon’s New Social Media Policy: Your Turn
• In About-Face, Marines Embrace Web 2.0

Authors: Katie Drummond

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