Snow Day: A Canadian HAB Adventure

[Shulman]

On October 29 the students in my physics class joined me in launching a flight from the snow covered football field at our high school. This turned into a 5 day ordeal with our payload lost in the dense wilderness of Northern Ontario. I know it was odd to launch in a snow storm, but it was the snow that absorbed the kinetic energy out of the atmosphere allowing us a flight under 50 km. Who knew it could take every daylight hour and a person of fortitude just to achieve the position where the balloon landed.

Yahoo! Planning the next flight for May -> then it will be the insects to contend with instead of the snow.

To see a gallery of our flight including a video of the build, launch, long walk home and eventual retrieval, view the following link:

http://mysites-nndsb.nearnorthschools.ca/personal/shulmank/Shared%20Documents/SPH3U/NearSpaceProject/Gallery/Gallery.html

[dgerson]

Very cool! Glad you were able to get the flight off and recover, even if the recovery was a bit more exciting than you hoped! Congratulations!

How old are your students? And why did you decide to for a balloon with them? Are you doing follow up lessons on anything from the flight?

Good luck preparing for the next flight

[Shulman]

This is a grade 11 physics class and so my students are 16 - 17 years old. I did this with them because I think it is the coolest activity ever, having done this both personally and with students in the past as well, and I wanted to do it again. But this is also for the kids (ha): a great engineering challenge, and then we are using data from the flight in an assignment for each unit. aprs gave us an export of the position data for kinematics, right now they are working on dynamics and so we are looking at the parachute drag, FBD, terminal velocity, then it fits well in the Energy unit as well as kinetic molecular theory, and then it was easy to develop an assignment about electricity, and I am designing an assignment about waves where we discuss resonance in terms of antennae theory. So it really serves my whole course well. I would have preferred to do the launch near the end of the course instead of this retrospective, but conditions in February in the bush and on the roads would be...more interesting, and that retrieval was interesting enough.

[dgerson]

A HAB flight does fit perfectly into your physics class, what an awesome experience for your students!

Do you have any lesson plans or material for incorportaing have into your class that you'd be willing to share for other edicators to use?

[Shulman]

The project page can be found at the link below and it has most of the planning and links to students activities, although I have been jigging the student questions with real flight data that I printed for the kids, but I still have to post to the project page...once I have those pesky report cards out of the way

http://mysites-nndsb.nearnorthschools.ca/personal/shulmank/Shared%20Documents/SPH3U/NearSpaceProject/nearSpaceProject.html

[dgerson]

That site is amazing! Very well organized and a ton of great information. Thank you for sharing!

You said you are planning another flight - what is the goal for that one? Will it be with the same class?

[Shulman]

Just watching the Mars landing - wow! The Marco satellites are amazing.

Our next mission will be with another class since we are in a semester system - it will be a group of grade 12 students. I will be waiting to see what goal they would like to set - since this launch will be at the end of the course I am able to let the students steer the mission a little more than I could this time.

MY goal is to get some kids working on the computer programming and electronics side of things. I have just moved over to this school in September and they do not have a computer science program at all. I am going to build a program but since students select courses almost a year in advance I have no actual comp sci courses running this year, and so building a systems team is what I plan to work on. Next week I am starting a group called Code Green Game Development with hopes of meeting more of my target audience, making some games, and getting at least a few of them interested in some pi, python and electronics for the next mission.

Another opportunity that arose from our mission is an invitation received by our school from the Canadian Space Agency (http://www.asc-csa.gc.ca/eng/sciences/balloons/base.asp) to attend their stratospheric balloon launch in September from their site in Timmins, Ontario, Canada. They have invited a team of 20 people from our school to go to the launch. I am truly excited to see something of this scale. High altitude ballooning really is a gift that keeps on giving our kids learning adventures.

[dgerson]

Mars landing was definitely awesome!

Your dedication to your students and exposing them to new ideas and skillsets is awesome - best of luck building the students' interest and pushing them to expand their thinking. Can't wait to hear what ideas they come up with.

And so cool that you got that invite from the Canadian Space Agency! Attending a launch of a balloon that scale from Timmins sounds like a truly remarkable experience. Can't wait to hear about it and see some pictures!

[Shulman]

It's not exactly The Rolling Stone, but here is our mission on the cover of The Canadian Amateur Magazine, along with a little article promoting HAB. Not only great for the kids, but also a nod to our small and aging radio club that is much in need of new makers.

[dgerson]

That's awesome! Congrats on the recognition. Your students are really lucky for the opportunity. Still amazed at your recovery and dedication to fly in the snow. Can't wait to hear about the next launch.

Keep up the awesome work.