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Pics from 8th graders successful 100k foot high flight, $200 ballon
- RiderOfGiraffes 16y agoSee also: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1505799 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1505799 This isn't a duplication, it's out own jgc attempting to do the same thing.
- daeken 16y agoWow, I did a double-take while reading this; I just moved back to Chambersburg, PA, the town they launched this from. Awesome stuff!
- vollmond 16y agoOk, now I have to read the article. My wife has family in Shippensburg...
- jgrahamc 16y agoAnd the experience of launching and tracking the device was like a scene right out of Hollywood, Wiley said, as the kids tracked the device in real-time using a student's iPad. Because, you know, it wouldn't be real or exciting if it wasn't like a scene out of Hollywood. But the school has a nice page on this here with video: http://www.potomacschool.org/campus-life/campus-life/intermediate-school/is-ballon-visits-the-edge-of-space/index.aspx http://www.potomacschool.org/campus-life/campus-life/interme...
- jws 16y agoReally futuristic would be if the Washington Post would let my iPad show the photo gallery.
- filosofo 16y agoYou might appreciate "Life: The Movie" if you haven't already read it. The author details the ways in which entertainment has become the metric by which many Americans judge their lives.
- duffbeer703 16y agoWhat a great school project!
- etm117 16y agoThis is truly great. I hope the teacher(s) are doing a bunch of follow-up work teaching about how and why this worked. Also use that interest to drive into other topics such as how the balloon gets its lift versus a rocket engine. This type of out of the ordinary teaching gets kids excited about learning. And the best part is because it is exciting, they probably do not even realize that they are "learning", they just go home and talk about all the awesome stuff they did putting a balloon into space. And the talk of that "stuff" is all the stuff they learned without needing to sit and study from a book or have a teacher lecture at you while you stare out the window.
- emzo 16y agoSomeone should keep a list of exciting projects like this that schools could undertake - somewhere teachers could go to for inspiration.
- emzo 16y agohttp://sciencetoymaker.org/ http://sciencetoymaker.org/ has some great projects.
- TallGuyShort 16y agosomewhere teachers could go to for inspiration. Unfortunately, a lack of inspiration is only part of the problem. My middle school science teacher would do stuff like this all the time, and it was great. In high school I had a teacher try similar things, but after a while they were asked to stay in the classroom and teach from the book. Tragic, if you ask me.
- asmithmd1 16y agoRight, high altitude balloon flying is not on the standardized test that all government schools are judged by since the "No Child Left Behind" act. All government school teachers now have to "teach" to the test and can't waste time on projects like this.
- anamax 16y ago> All government school teachers now have to "teach" to the test and can't waste time on projects like this. Those tests are a fairly low bar, so competent teachers have no problem making sure that their kids pass and doing things like high altitude balloon flying. The problem is the teachers who don't manage to get their kids over that low bar. They don't do high altitude balloon flying, but they will do pointless field trips and never get around to teaching kids to read. Feel free to argue that high altitude balloon flying is more important than reading.
- jerf 16y ago
- jlcgull 16y agoNice job, but the headline is somewhat misleading... it is _not_ a 100k foot balloon, but a balloon that reached 100k feet. My first impression was of a really long balloon tube. :)
- asmithmd1 16y agoThanks, I edited the headline
- ck2 16y agoI think it's great that kids are learning like this but what is the chance of danger to aviation out of curiosity?
- MichaelSalib 16y agoI believe that the Federal Aviation Regulations give unpowered craft right of way over powered craft, so it would the responsibility of any aircraft that encountered the balloon to steer around it. But realistically, the odds that any aircraft would even get near the balloon are very small. Most of its flight was far above the cruising altitude for commercial aircraft. And during its ascent and descent, contact with aircraft is minimal: the atmosphere is very very very big and the combined volume of all the aircraft in the world is very small comparison.
- asmithmd1 16y agoPretty slight. The whole thing had a mass of around 2 lbs and the electronics were mounted in a Styrofoam cooler. Although it is probably not a good idea to launch it right at an airport. As long as your payload is under 4 lbs there are virtually no requirements. Here is an excerpt of FAA FAR 101 http://www.eoss.org/pubs/far_annotated.htm http://www.eoss.org/pubs/far_annotated.htm Canadian geese are demonstrably a much greater threat.
- blhack 16y ago>With help from iPad Does apple actually pay them to print things like this?
- w1ntermute 16y agoOf course not, people will do it for free because of the RDF.
- ergo98 16y agoSeriously, the desperate product placement was extraordinary. iPad made a showing in the headline, and 5 times in the text. You would think that the iPad invented 3G data access or something. What a ridiculous distraction in an otherwise interesting story.
- foulmouthboy 16y agoThis is great and all, but I'm not sure how they managed to get a cell phone with GPS, a digital camera and an iPad all for under $200.
- jonknee 16y agoI assume they had all those (all really common) and the $200 was for the stuff like balloon and gas that aren't common and/or reusable.
- aw3c2 16y agoWow, if you visit the gallery without Javascript enabled of Flash enabled you get a simple single page with all the content. Time to thank the webmasters.
- albemuth 16y agos/ballon/balloon/
- jolan 16y agoI prefer the weaponized version myself: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fire_balloon http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fire_balloon