High-Level Project Summary
The concepts involved in the development of a High Altitude Balloon relate to more than one discipline and themes with different complexities. The development will be done in an interdisciplinary way, with teaching plans in the form of a game (because after all, Science should be fun). Each level will be a stage of the project. The financing will be through partnerships between public development agencies and private companies interested in new technologies in the aerospace field. The program was strategically designed so that it is carried out with the least possible resources and the smallest budget, thus creating a proposal of high value and applicability.
Link to Project "Demo"
Link to Final Project
Detailed Project Description
Our project trains teachers from educational institutions to develop, launch and analyze the experiments sent to "Near-Space" enabling a person who does not know what a HAB is and who might never have the opportunity of performing a launch.
Our innovative educational program will take the form of competition between high school students from Brazilian public schools. The program will cover the complete step-by-step instructions on developing and launching a High Altitude Balloon capable of reaching the stratosphere, using it in scientific experiments, and processing the data from these experiments to achieve unprecedented results.
The benefits are numerous, among which are: development of interdisciplinary, interpersonal, social skills and the development of new technologies, to which we aim to encourage this engagement through Inter-school competitions.
All this is being made possible through a lot of research and dedication of the team, good mentoring by applied professionals, some tools available on the internet, and especially with the collaboration of sponsors.
Space Agency Data
The NASA's *Scientific Balloon* web page (https://www.nasa.gov/scientificballoons) offered us an overview of the different types of balloons and the considerations of a launch site. It helped us to chose the zero-pressure type ballon for our project.
The ASTHROS mission (https://www.nasa.gov/feature/jpl/nasa-mission-will-study-the-cosmos-with-a-stratospheric-balloon) was one of the texts that inspired and opened our eyes to the possibilities of experiments in stratospheric balloons.
The Brazilian Space Agency, through the National Institute for Space Research Balloon Launch Sector (http://www.slb.inpe.br/), offered some information and the previous campaigns made here in Brazil.
Hackathon Journey
It all started with an article on the internet about a challenge that NASA would be holding, so we tried to know better what it was about. We saw a vast potential to generate impacts throughout society.
When signing up for the NASA Apps Challenger and evaluating the proposed challenges, the theme "Near-Space Near You!" was what caught our attention, as it would have social and educational importance there.
The group took shape after interacting with the challenge mentors in the city of São Jose dos Campos. Gabriel conceived the group, so we all faced the challenge (José Paulo, Nicholas, Lucas, Giovana, and Raynara) with the same passion for making a difference in our community. So there he was, forming the Space Bubble team, challenging changing lives through education.
In this process of much research and good mentoring, we came across the project carried out at NASA's Glenn Research Center in Cleveland (https://www.nasa.gov/centers/glenn/technology/explorers_balloons.html), where there is a stronghold agency incentive to stimulate the interest of students from local schools in space, through the launch of balloons and their experiments.
From that moment on, we felt the moral obligation as Brazilian citizens to bring this type of opportunity to the less favored students here, as our people have never lacked willpower, who have resilience and innovation register
References
Liuzzi V, Della Corte V, Rotundi A, Ivanovski S, Dionnet Z, Brunetto R, Inno L. Zero-pressure balloons trajectory prediction: Duster flight simulations. Advances in Space Research. 2020 Oct 15;66(8):1876-86.
Ridley A, Hamet N, Xie J, Webb P. Flight Prediction Software for High Altitude Balloons. InAcademic High Altitude Conference 2014 Jan 1 (Vol. 2014, No. 1). Iowa State University Digital Press.
https://rsaa.anu.edu.au/study/potential-projects/high-altitude-balloon-experiment-platform
https://www.highaltitudescience.com/pages/intro-to-weather-balloons
https://www.overlookhorizon.com/how-to-launch-weather-balloons/inflate-weather-balloon/
https://storage.googleapis.com/x-prod.appspot.com/files/The%20Loon%20Library.pdf
https://scied.ucar.edu/interactive/virtual-ballooning
Tags
#challenge, #stratosphere, #secondarySchool, #lowcost,, #weatherballoons
Global Judging
This project has been submitted for consideration during the Judging process.