RobotRising

Lewiston and Auburn turned into a floating arena last weekend. The annual L/A Balloon Festival filled the sky with color from dawn to dusk, and being there felt like stepping into a casino where every balloon was a bet in motion. The odds shifted with each gust of wind, and you could almost hear the crowd holding its collective breath when pilots dropped markers toward the targets in Simard-Payne Park.

The morning launches looked calm, almost predictable. If you were betting early, you’d have given safe coefficients to the seasoned crews, the ones who had the timing of the valley breezes memorized. But by the afternoon, the gamble was wide open: winds pulled some veterans off course, while two small local teams rode low currents straight onto the field like underdogs cashing in on a long shot.

The outcome? Chaotic in the best possible way. One pilot missed by barely a meter, another scattered far out near the riverbank. The betting lines in my head were shredded by the reality overhead, proving again why no algorithm or forecast can fully script the sky. That mix of strategy, luck, and instinct — it’s pure adrenaline.

I walked away thinking less about winners and more about the gamble itself. Watching those balloons chase invisible paths reminded me of blackjack tables at midnight: chips stacked, bets laid down, nobody sure until the very last card. Only here, the table was the summer sky, and the stakes were painted in fire and fabric.

Longview, Texas, turned into a giant casino this July — only the tables were fields and the chips were balloons. The Great Texas Balloon Race ran hotter than the summer air, and I couldn’t look away. The Hare and Hound contest was the centerpiece: one balloon (the hare) takes off first, and the rest (the hounds) chase it, betting on altitude, timing, and nerve to get closest to the target.

I watched veterans play it cool, hovering high to catch steady winds, while newcomers tried bold dives low across the tree line. Every move felt like watching live betting odds shift in real time. One moment the coefficients looked clear — a leader pulling away — then a sudden gust tilted the whole table, and the underdogs were suddenly holding the winning hand.

The gamble was everywhere: in the fuel calculations, in the second a pilot delayed ignition, in the risk of dropping a marker too soon or too late. Some bets paid off, others crashed into empty fields far from the goal. The outcome was messy, dramatic, and better than any scripted finish.

For me, this wasn’t just a race. It was betting without money, a living spread of odds drawn in the sky. Strategy, chance, instinct — all laid bare over Texas heat. And honestly? I’d put my stake on the Great Texas Balloon Race again any summer.

I made it back in time for one hell of an experiment: the Helen to the Atlantic balloon race kicked off on June 5. Twenty balloons, one start line in mountain-charmed Helen, and a finish somewhere out past I-95 — the sky’s version of laying down bets in a casino, only the roulette wheel is the breeze, and the odds are written in shifting winds.

The pilots plan their strategy months ahead: fuel loads, crew handoffs, altitude to catch the right wind current — every ounce matters when 40 gallons gives you barely four hours before you’re grounded. I felt like I was watching a live gamble, where coefficients aren’t numbers in a chart but real-time choices that will stretch or break your flight.

Some crews played it safe near the treeline. Others—surprise—dashed low past canyon edges like they were cutting cards at a blackjack table, eyes darting for that tiny air current advantage. You whisper your bet: will they drift east or ride higher for a shot at tailwinds? Every move feels like pushing chips forward in the haze of a late-night casino glow.

By day’s end, a few veterans pulled ahead, but two underdog teams—one college group, one local duo—made moves that rewrote my internal odds. That’s the thrill: strategy locked in, but the gamble always spills out in the final glide.

I’ll untangle the flight paths and share who rode which currents, which bets paid off… and who left the table with pockets empty in pride, but eyes bright. Stay tuned for numbers and stories.

May slipped away from me. Too many trains, a couple of family things, half-written notes scattered across two different notebooks. I kept telling myself I’d post “tomorrow,” and then suddenly the month was gone.

I didn’t vanish completely. I still followed a few balloon meets online, checked results late at night. Some outcomes were predictable, others hit me like a spin in a casino wheel — you think you know where it will land, but it jumps past your guess.

So June feels like a reset. I’m back at the desk, sorting through scraps of what I missed and planning what’s next. There’s at least one event this month that deserves a closer look, and I want to write it down before it drifts away like the rest of May did.

I’m back from Horseshoe Bay Resort, and my head is still full of fire and color. Three days of launches, evening glow shows, and the kind of restless crowd that never stands still when there’s a balloon overhead.

The first night set the tone: rows of balloons lit up against the lake, burners roaring in sync with music. Beautiful, sure, but what really caught me was the tension on the pilots’ faces earlier that day. Spring winds came in messy, and a few teams had to choose between climbing higher or drifting off course. That’s where you start making your own prediction, like marking a mental bet on who will manage the shift.

Some of the favorites held steady, but not all. One local team slipped early, overcorrected, and lost ground. Meanwhile, a student crew from Austin pulled off a bold move, cutting low and sliding right onto the marker field. Nobody saw it coming — and that surprise is exactly why I keep calling this a gamble of skill and instinct more than a simple show.

The outcome? Mixed. Veterans proved why they’re respected, but the underdogs stole attention and earned more cheers than medals. Strategy helped, but luck had its say too. In the end, no forecast can tell you how a flight will really end. You just watch, wait, and feel your pulse rise with theirs.

That’s my takeaway from Texas: ballooning isn’t just spectacle. It’s a contest where preparation collides with chance, and every flight rewrites the script. I’ll be following the next stop with even sharper eyes.

This week I’m packing my gear for Texas. Horseshoe Bay Resort will host its annual hot air balloon weekend on April 18–20, and I don’t want to miss it. Dozens of pilots, late-evening glow shows, and a crowd that treats ballooning as both art and sport — that’s enough reason to get on the road.

Why go? For me it’s about more than photos. Watching how pilots handle the shifting spring winds feels like following a match where the scoreboard is invisible until the very last move. You can place your own quiet prediction in your head: who keeps control, who drifts, who surprises. The outcome is never obvious, and that uncertainty is the hook.

I’ll be paying special attention to the underdogs — student crews and local teams with less experience. They don’t always win, but they often make the most daring calls. That mix of instinct and rough strategy is where the real gamble lives. It’s not money at stake here, but reputation, pride, and the memory of whether you nailed it or missed by a mile.

In short, I’m heading there to see how far preparation can carry someone, and where pure chance steps in. I’ll keep notes and share what the weekend looked like, gusts and all.

Stay tuned for the report.

Mid-March, Tochigi Prefecture. Student teams from across Japan rolled their balloons onto a frosty field before sunrise, burners hissing like impatient kettles. It was the 29th All-Japan Inter-College Hot Air Balloon Championship, a mouthful of a title for what felt more like a raw test of patience and nerve.

I stood watching one launch after another. Some balloons lifted clean and straight, others drifted almost sideways the moment they cleared the treeline. A few pilots were laughing nervously, trying to pretend they weren’t watching their markers miss the target by a wide stretch. Those moments said more than any scoreboard could.

For me, that’s where the fascination lies: you can prepare, plan routes, study the forecasts — and then the air decides otherwise. You can guess, but you can’t know. It’s a gamble, though not the kind that empties wallets. Here the stakes are pride, bragging rights, maybe a medal if you’re lucky.

Some of the underdogs had better instincts than the veterans. I wouldn’t have predicted it, and that’s exactly why I keep following these events. They surprise you in small, human ways.

More details ahead

What started as an experiment with balloons and cameras has now taken a slightly different turn. Watching pilots chase distance records or try to drop a marker as close to the target as possible feels almost like guessing who’s going to take the lead in a match. The air is uncertain, the wind is tricky, and every choice matters.

If you’ve been following the project, you know it was never only about technology — it was about the nerves, the risk, and that uneasy feeling in your stomach when you can’t be sure how things will finish. The same energy runs through competitive ballooning events around the world, where a single gust of wind or a burner left open too long can shuffle the standings in seconds.

This site will keep that sense of experimentation alive, but with a new focus: looking at the sporting side of balloon flights, and how the mix of planning, luck, and plain gut feeling shapes predictions. Think of it as another kind of launch — only this time, instead of sending up a camera, we’re testing how far instinct and quick decisions can carry us.

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It turns out that launching, losing, finding, and recovering a balloon is way easier than getting the imagery ready. Let’s find out why!

(If you see an image in this post, click it. If you regret it I’ll refund you the price of admission.)

If you’ve been following along you’ll know that the goal of this project was to achieve a world first accomplishment of fully spherical panoramic imagery of a (small) section of our planet as seen from the stratosphere. In addition to imagery I also wanted to put together a video of the whole flight. The video didn’t quite happen as I hoped. Some of the obstacles were too large to overcome using the hardware that I sent up. I’ll hopefully cover those obstacles in this post.

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