Twin Valley High School students from Michael Mannix’s Physics II class launched a high altitude balloon, in Quarryville on April 30 and tracked it through a radio signal and Internet connection.
Mannix and the six attending students were unable to retrieve the balloon after it lost signal from their radio transmitter. They intended for the balloon to burst near the high school, but it kept afloat last heading northwest over Barto at 72,000 feet, according to Mannix. He says that the error occurred by not sealing the balloon’s stem tightly enough to contain the high-pressure helium at a high altitude.
“It was a thrill to launch and track the device,” he said. “Yes, it goes down as a ‘failure,’ but I know the students who launched and tracked the balloon now know that a failure can be a rich and rewarding experience.”
He also noted that “failure happens all the time in science.”
The group was successful in predicting the balloon’s path of ascent.
Aside from the actual launch, Mannix and the students had to plan other aspects, like a payload enclosure to retrieve the balloon and a circuit board for GPS tracking. A few students used web programs to predict and follow the balloon’s path. Another student, Tim Brockup, “hacked” a camera added to the balloon so it would take continuous pictures in the air. Mannix also developed an app to track the balloon on Yapp.
The students received help on the circuit board from Brockup’s boss Andrew Bale, an engineer from Stell Environmental Enterprises in Elverson. Dave Wiley and Phil Wheeler from the Reading Radio Club assisted with troubleshooting the radio transmitting and receiving system.
The project was optional for students, but the class did hold discussions about it and often did some problem solving for some aspects. Different parts of the project related back to lessons from class. The use of the radio transmission connected with the simple crystal radio receivers students made in class while making an antenna from copper wire connected with their study of waves.
They had to plan around unfavorable wind conditions, not knowing where the flight path will be until the morning of the launch. Mannix had originally hoped to have the launch in December, when the class working on the project had ended. However, they estimated flight path would go over the Atlantic Ocean.
Since the project was optional for the class, Mannix and families of participating students funded it.
Mannix said that the project can be done every year if they are able to retrieve the balloon when it bursts, and hopes to find a way to integrate it into the class.
The idea came from an article in Make Magazine by Dan Rasmussen, who wrote about and showed a video of the same experiment.
“I was just looking for something to get excited about and be memorable,” he said.
Mannix hopes to get a grant to retry the project in the next school year.
