Geocachers are forming a team to track down missing knights in the United Kingdom. The Langley Knights Competition puts a cash award of up to £11,000, social media clout and worldwide prestige for the geocaching community on the line. The game plays a form of hide-and-seek that geocachers know well. Just imagine this as a quest to be on the team with the most “first to finds.” Hundreds of teams are expected to compete to find the most knights.

Will you answer the call to be part of the geocaching team? Click here to join the geocaching team and recruit your friends and family to help increase the odds of winning the competition. Team members must be recruited by July 1.

Here are the details. Five knights are being hidden around the U.K. beginning on July 2. Three knights will be real physical knights. They’ll be found in full armor in actual parks with their winning code number. Two of the knights will be virtual knights. Geocachers anywhere in the world can search for photos of the knights on Google Maps or Google Earth to find their winning codes. The “cyber knights” will appear as a photo in or near parks in the U.K.

This video offers more information.

[youtube]B2Z7NULcurk[/youtube]

The competition is being organized by MIT Sloan School of Management and Cambridge Judge Business School. They’re calling this the first ever worldwide time critical social mobilization experiment.

Photos of all five knights will be released on July 2 at 9 am British Summer Time. If all the knights are not found in the first day clues will be provided several times a day, each subsequent day. If you are the first to find a knight, you receive a £1000 reward. The person who recruited you gets £500, and the person who recruited them receives £250. Any winnings directed to Groundspeak will be donated to charity. We are open to suggestions as to which charity this should be.

More information about the Langley Knights Competition can be found here. Join the Geocaching team and recruit friends using this URL: http://bitly.com/cachersuknight

This isn’t the first time geocachers competed in a timed social media challenge. Groundspeak Geocachers came in fifth out of more than 50 teams in the DARPA Network Challenge in 2009. The Langley Knight Competition was inspired by the DARPA Challenge.

Follow this blog post for the latest on the Langley Knight Competition and the success of the geocaching team. Good luck!