My husband wanted me to name this "an XX-rated surprise from the Edge of Space" - so I'm putting that here so that his wittiness doesn't go unnoticed.
This was my first high altitude balloon launch, and it was an amazing experience. I struggled a bit in the beginning, because there's no ~One Tutorial~ on how to build a high altitude balloon. There are about 10 million of them, and they all approach it differently, and none of them cover 100% of the design. Much of this process was a "well, I guess let's just see if this works" approach.
A big thank you goes out to my friend Bryan from Night Crew Labs. Bryan launches HABs professionally and answered a bunch of my early "OMG what am I doing?!" questions. Check out his channel here: / @nightcrewlabs9345
On top of everything, I did a lot of this project during the first trimester of my pregnancy, which isn't the easiest time to take on an engineering project (hello round-the-clock exhaustion/nausea!). But I had great motivation - I wanted to complete this before I was obviously pregnant and someone else spilled the beans. Nothing is a better motivator than a growing fetus!
My payload was fairly basic - it contained a GPS device, Arduino set-up + basic sensors, and 3 cameras + extended battery packs for each. Because I honestly wasn't sure I'd be able to find my payload, I just bought cheap $30 cameras off Amazon, and they worked pretty great. Here's more details for those interested.
GPS - SPOT Gen 3 ($150) - amzn.to/2KI22Fy
Balloon - 1200g balloon filled with about 160 cu ft of helium (meant to fill it with 200 cu ft of helium, but with basic lift-measurement devices it was hard to tell how much we had put in). High Altitude Science ($120)
300 cu ft of Helium - local gas supplier ($340) Apparently there's a helium shortage across the world, so Helium is hard to get and super expensive - I had no idea!
Cameras - Lightdow LD4000 Action Camera ($30) amzn.to/2Gessth
Extended Battery Packs - Kmashi Extended Batteries ($15) - amzn.to/2KCrGLP
Paracord - 50ft of 550 Type III 7 Strand ($8) - amzn.to/2DhsyiS
Radar Reflector - Davis Emergency Deluxe ($26) - amzn.to/2UGqImD
Parachute - 6ft parachute ($60) - Rocketman
Helium Inflation System with Lift-Measurement Device ($75) - High Altitude Science
Ball Bearing Swivel - Alwonder Fishing Strength ($10) - amzn.to/2XeNMFW
Oh, and you may have noticed a few random inclusions in/on our payload - any guesses to what we're planning on naming the baby?
Thanks for watching our XX-rated reveal! Have you ever launched a high altitude balloon? What was your experience like?
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12 май 2019
