The next game on our list is a highly sought after variant. The Asian version of Super Mario Bros. (identified as such by a convenient ASIAN VERSION label located towards the bottom of the game’s box) is arguably one of the most valuable variants in the video game collecting world. Like Tetris, pretty much everyone has played Super Mario Bros. However, this special cover is what makes the game as valuable as it is. This cartridge is unique in that, although it is technically an NTSC copy, is capable of being displayed in Cantonese. This may seem like a minuscule difference, but it makes a world of difference. In November of 2012, this variant sold on eBay for a whopping $25,000. For comparison, a standard, loose copy of Super Mario Bros. for the Nintendo Entertainment System will typically sell for a few bucks in a garage sale.

The 1990 Nintendo World Championship cartridge is another rare competition cartridge, and it is substantially more valuable than the Blockbuster cartridge that we talked about earlier. The custom cartridges contains custom mini-games based on Super Mario Bros., Rad Racer, and Tetris. The cartridges themselves have been distributed in two variants: grey and gold. The grey cartridges were given to the competition’s finalists, and the more rare gold copies were distributed in a separate contest held by Nintendo Power magazine. This cartridge is widely known as one of the most valuable NES cartridges in existence, with its relatively large quantity makes it common enough for people to know about, but with a certain mystique that makes it rare enough to be valuable. (As you can imagine, people are more reluctant to part with a Nintendo World Championship cart than they would be to part with a Blockbuster World Championship cart.)

#4 – Superman (Atari 2600) [Est. Price Range: $17,000 – $33,800]

Superman was actually a fairly popular Atari 2600 game upon its release, and a lot of people have owned and played it. Before you go digging in your basement for this game, though, recall what I said before about certain cartridge variants being worth more than others. The Sears Telegames variant of Superman is one of the rarest Atari 2600 cartridges out there. This particular game is easily identified by its Sears Telegames label, as well as its yellow text. Most people own the standard version of the game, which has red text on the label. This version is worth pennies compared to the Sears Telegram variant. This is also the rarest Sears Telegames variant that is currently in existence, and people will spend good money to get their hands on it. A boxed copy sold for around $30,000 on eBay a couple of years ago.

#5 – Birthday Mania (Atari 2600) [Est. Price Range: $14,700 – $33,900]

The next game I’m going to talk about is sort of a weird one. Birthday Mania isn’t a game so much as it is a novelty. The game is intended to be given as a birthday gift, and it is packaged in a box that allows the gift giver to write the recipient’s name. The gameplay itself is mostly sparse, and it consists primarily of mini-games. In these mini-games, the player will do things like blow out candles and pop different balloons. This game may seem kind of lame, but consider that it was created by an independent programmer and only advertised in a local newspaper. The game is said to have sold between 10 and 15 copies, although apparently only a few verified copies of Birthday Mania actually exist. Although independent games today are usually pretty inexpensive, the unofficial means of this game’s distribution and production make it really hard to pin down, which only makes it more valuable in the eyes of a collector.

#6 – Stadium Events (Nintendo Entertainment System) [Est. Price Range: $12,000 – $35,000]

Before games like Wii Fit and Just Dance flooded the market, Nintendo gamers had to look to other sources to get their “fitness” fix. This game was released alongside a power pad controller, which was basically a roll out DDR-style mat that was used to participate in the game’s running and jumping events. Players would line up on different sections of the mat and run and jump on the different buttons to participate in athletic events. Stadium Events was released in September of 1987, but very soon after its release, the game was recalled so that it could be rebranded. The NTSC original release of this game is considered one of the rarest NES games out there, and it has sold for close to $35,000 in good condition. When you exclude variant titles and exclusive cartridges, Stadium Events actually does hold the honor of being the most valuable game for the Nintendo Entertainment System.

#7 – Blockbuster World Championships II (Sega Genesis / Mega Drive) [Est. Price Range: $10,100 – $17,000]

The next item on our list brings us to another Genesis game. It is also our first “specialty” cartridge. You see, during the 1990s, video game publishers and distributors liked to host different gaming competitions, some of which were pretty massive. In order to hold these competitions, custom cartridges were made and packed with modified games, making them ideal for competitive play. This particular cartridge was used in the second Blockbuster World Video Game Championships. If you’re ever able to get your hands on this cart, you’ll find that it contains altered versions of Judge Dredd and NBA Jam Tournament Edition. The event was held in 1995, and gaming was held on both the Mega Drive and on the SNES. The SNES cartridges were distributed as prizes to the contest’s winners, and the Mega Drive cartridges were actually ordered to be destroyed upon the contest’s finish. Obviously, some of them made it into the public.

#8 – Tetris (Sega Genesis / Mega Drive) [Est. Price Range: $2,800 – $15,800]

#9 – The King of Fighters 2000 (Neo Geo) [Est. Price Range: $4,000 – $5,600]

The Neo Geo AES console is one of those consoles that no one ever really owned. At the time of its release in 1990, it was ridiculously powerful. Its hardware was much more powerful than most hardware that you could find inside of a personal computer. (Compare this to today, where most consoles are significantly weaker than personal computers.) Befitting its specs, the Neo Geo was sold for close to $650 upon launch. Its sales were really low, since most people weren’t willing to part with that kind of money for it. The King of Fighters 2000 is a competitive fighting game that was really popular on other platforms, but it saw a limited release on the Neo Geo AES. It has been rumored that only around 100 copies of this game exist.

#10 – Wrecking Crew (Nintendo Entertainment System) [Est. Price Range: $1,000 – $4,000]

Wrecking Crew is one of the least well-known Mario games out there. The game was released in 1985, and it was actually bundled with a lot of Nintendo Entertainment Systems upon the console’s launch. Gameplay is fairly simple. Basically, you are looking to destroy certain items with a large hammer. Each level is different, and the fact that the player character is unable to jump means that each level presents a new puzzle. The game has become popular in recent years, but it obviously never became as popular as some of Mario’s other games. How is it so valuable? Although the game was originally bundled with the NES, it still possesses a lot of value in a mint condition, factory sealed form. It has sold for $1,000 and up in this sort of condition.

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Today 1.6 billion people live in regions that don't have access to a mobile broadband network. Connecting these remote parts of the world with existing technologies such as buried optical fiber or microwave links on towers is often cost-prohibitive. As part of our commitment to Internet.org, the Facebook Connectivity Lab is developing many new technologies to bring affordable internet access to more people, more quickly. One of the technologies we are building is a fleet of solar-powered aircraft called Aquila. Once they are fully operational, these high-altitude planes will stay airborne for up to 90 days at a time and beam broadband coverage to a 60-mile-wide area on the ground, helping to open the opportunities of the internet to people in underconnected regions.

After several months of flying scale models, our team has reached an important milestone: We successfully completed the first full-scale test flight. The low-altitude test flight lasted for 96 minutes — more than three times our planned mission length — and provided our aeronautics team with data on numerous aspects of Aquila's performance, including the autopilot, motors, batteries, radios, ground station, displays, basic aerodynamic handling, structural viability, and crew training. This post details some of our early learnings from the test flight and the data we collected, and looks ahead to some of the challenges we're working on next.

• Takeoff: Aquila's design is optimized for minimal mass, so it does not include traditional takeoff and landing gear. The first part of our test involved orchestrating a new kind of takeoff. We attached the airplane to a dolly structure using four straps, then accelerated the dolly to takeoff speed. Once the autopilot sensed that the plane had reached the right speed, the straps were cut simultaneously by pyrotechnic cable cutters known as “squibs.” While the ground-based crew can command the plane's heading, altitude, airspeed, and GPS-based route from a control computer, there are no joysticks involved — takeoff is on autopilot. A great deal of simulation and analysis were performed prior to first flight to understand the dynamics of takeoff and to choose the aircraft's pitch on the dolly, the speed at which it would be released, and the initial elevon angle. The specifications based on our simulations resulted in a successful takeoff.
• Aerodynamic model: Aquila will need to operate in both cold, thin air at high altitude and warm, thick air at low altitude. The air is 10x more dense at sea level than at cruising altitude, and the aerodynamics of the plane's wings and propellers vary greatly over that range. When designing the aircraft, we built computer models based on computational fluid dynamics that helped us understand how much power is required to propel the plane for the different altitudes and speeds at which it will operate. We then ran the model through thousands of tests, using different parameters, to ensure the plane would meet our performance, stability, and control requirements. We also performed a coarse verification of our drag model, which measures the force of air opposing the moving aircraft. Both the climb rate and the battery usage were close to the predicted values. We tested the autopilot and the aeroservoelastic model on which it is based when we flew our 1/5-scale aircraft earlier this year. Our initial analysis from the full-scale flight suggests our aerodynamic models are in line with what we observed.
• Battery and power performance: While Aquila's power system will eventually include solar cells, our first few test aircraft are powered only by batteries to give us early indications about their aerodynamic performance, handling qualities, and autopilot performance, and to verify our structural models. Given the low drag and slow speed of 25 mph, Aquila flew on less than 2,000 W of power during its first flight. This matched well with our prediction, which suggests that the propeller efficiency, motor efficiency, and drag were also in line with predicted values.
• Autopilot performance model: Like many modern UAVs, Aquila is controlled by a full-time autopilot. To make our large, flexible aircraft controllable requires that we understand how the aircraft deforms under the aerodynamic and inertial loads, and what the structural modes and frequencies look like. Our first flight verified that the autopilot design is correct at low altitude and low true airspeed. During all maneuvers, the autopilot was stable and accurate, and it brought the aircraft to the commanded condition in the predicted amount of time. The automatic landing algorithm also performed well, tracking the glide path and centerline with expected accuracy.
• Real-world conditions: Our simulations and analysis predict how the aircraft will respond to wind, turbulence, and vertical gusts. Our first flight lasted three times longer than the minimum mission length, so we were able to gather data on how the structure and autopilot responded under a range of real-world conditions to help verify these predictions. We are still analyzing the results of the extended test, including a structural failure we experienced just before landing. We hope to share more details on this and other structural tests in the future. To prove out the full capacity of the design, we will continue to push the plane to its limits under more extreme conditions in a lengthy series of tests.

Challenges ahead

• Challenge #1 — Getting enough sun. For a solar-powered airplane to work, enough energy must be collected during daylight hours to operate for the full 24-hour day. The amount of energy the airplane requires to power its propulsion, payload, avionics, heaters, lights, communications, and other systems has to be less than or equal to what the solar panels can collect. At its nighttime altitude of 60,000 feet, Aquila will require approximately 5,000 W of power — about as much as three hair dryers. During the winter, the solar panels must be able to collect enough energy during the short days to keep the batteries charged over the long nights, up to 14 hours at a time.
• Challenge #2 — Batteries. Keeping the airplane aloft on a long winter night requires a lot of stored energy. Given current and projected battery performance, that means batteries will account for roughly half the mass of the airplane. The rest of Aquila's mass consists of motors, payload, avionics, and structure. We're pushing the edge of high energy-density batteries while exploring the best designs to ensure we have enough resilience in the system.
• Challenge #3 — Size and speed. Aquila has a wingspan comparable to a commercial airliner's but weighs only one-third as much as a car. This ratio of weight to surface area means that Aquila is able to fly much slower than a typical airplane of the same size — about 25 mph at sea level, compared with 50 mph for a glider or more than 200 mph for a commercial airliner. Such stark differences challenge many of the assumptions relied upon in aeronautical engineering. There is little to no precedent to guide us as we continue to optimize Aquila's performance.
• Challenge #4 — New cost paradigms. For Aquila to succeed, it needs to be an economically viable alternative to current network infrastructure. We need to develop more efficient onboard power and communication systems; ensure the aircraft are resilient to structural damage to reduce maintenance costs, and able to stay aloft for long periods of time to keep fleet numbers low; and minimize the amount of human supervision associated with their operation. We're working with the industry on ways to accelerate the development of new technologies that can drastically change the economics of deploying internet infrastructure.