60 0 g M e t

There are several dif ferent typ latex "sou es of weat nding" ball her balloo oon, which ns. We use experimen is used in h d a natura ts by wea ig h l t a her statio ltitude scie according n s n . ce Weather b to their w alloons are eight, wit higher altit h heavier measured ude. We u o nes costin sed a 600 g altitude o m ore but re g balloon, f 100,000 aching a as it could ft, with le used heliu a c h ie s s v h e elium nee our target m gas as o ded than a pposed to larger ball hydrogen oon. We since heliu m is safer to handle. 3

eorologica l

Weather B

alloon

y using Int ernet data for our ball fill the ball oon, we fo oon at laun und that t ch was 1.81m 3 cylinder - t he volume of helium o achieve o of gas nee t h u ded to e r size of a st target altit the balloo andard V-s ude of 30k n would ex ized BOC g m. If we fil pand to its over 120m 3 as led more t bursting p at 6m diam h a o n in t t h a is t v a e o lower altit ter - the siz lume of ga the flight-p ude - the v s, e of a hous ath predict o e lu . m T io h e at burst e volume o n - too mu little and t being ch gas, and f helium fil he balloon led was als the balloo and payloa n o would rise used in d would dri faster than ft further than predic predicted, to o ted.

1.81m heli um (V-Size d Cy l i n B

der)

Although th in, this braid ed nylon cord is very strong - it h as a breaking stra in of 22.5kg . We used 10m of it between t he balloon and the payload .

2mm Nylo

n Co r d

24" Ripsto

The parac hute we c hose was lightweig originally ht nylon f designed abric is wo for use w essential f ven in a cr ith model or our pur o s s rockets. It h a pose, sinc tch patter at termin s e n t to preven he payloa al velocity t tearing, d could do ! which is considera We used t ble damag he follow e if it descend ing equat ed 24" parach ion to calc ute attach u la t e the desce ed. We th from the nt speed o en tested top of ou f the paylo t h is r school b f ig u r e ad with o by timing uilding. ur how long it took to fall

p Parachu

te

2 =

Ca m e r a

The GPS T racker in t he payloa track the d enables payload's us to location o To receive n c e it has land the coord e d. inates, we phone the device, an d it texts back its lo cation and inform ation such as ba ttery life and a link to a mobile v ersion of a map.

GPS Track

er

As shown in the orig inal sketc gaffer tap h to the le ed the cor ft , w e d s f r om the cu each side of STRATO rtain ring to S's payloa its stabilit d, to ensu y during f r e light. The also helpe gaffer tap d to wate e r s e a l the paylo around its ad opening important protect th to e electron ics if it wa raining wh s ere it land ed.

Attaching

Another in novation of ours w cords runn as to atta ing from t ch the mu h e p ltiple ayload to to the ma in single c a curtain r o in r d g u a p to the b ttached could indiv alloon. Th idually ga is f f w e a r y, we tape each were secu knot to en re, and th at the line sure they s would n ot tangle.

Curtain Ri ng

m/s -1 ht of the parachute where, + payload rho = air d , in N ensity at sea level (1.225 Kg/m 3 dc = parac ) hute drag coefficien t (0.75) s = total s urface are a of the p arachute (*0.3 2) w = weig

v = vertic

al descent

velocity, in

The team w as concerne d that the parachute w ould get tan gled during its asc ent, so we u sed an innovative so lution: securi ng a washer to th e cord just u n der where the st retched out parachute w ould rest, as shown in the scan of our original sketch:

Washer

cord to pa y

lo a d

Polystyren

Our payload was originall y going to be a wint er tap cover, though we couldn't find one wh ilst purchasing e quipment so instead chose to recy cle an old dry -ice container fr om the scho ol's science department, which had p reviously been used a s a stage pro p. The hollow poly styrene box measures 27cm w x 24 cm l x 25cm h.

e Containe r

We used a sm all Canon po int-and-sho camera, the ot A550, "borr owed" from department the Graphic at school (in s exchange fo camera). W r a new e had to use this old cam the rare abil era because ity to be "ha it has ck e d ", that is, to programme be d to take ph otographs a t regular tim ed intervals au tomatically , essential fo r our STRAT OS project. We set the camera to t ake a photo best quality every 10 seco , with a 2GB nds at its m e m ory card insi fact the cam de. By using era took 1,4 86 photos, the flight time w we calculate as 4.13 hours d t h e exact .

To keep the electronics in side the payload fun ctioning desp ite the freezing tem peratures o utside, the polysty rene payloa d acted as a good insu lator, and as an added measure, w e tightly pa cked newspaper inside to tra p layers of air. The new spaper also helped to keep the co ntents in pla ce in the high winds.

Insulation

Regular han d-warmers only stay ho half an hour t for t o o sh ort for STRA hour flight. T O S's 4 After some research, we learnt ab out iron oxid ising hand warm ers which re main warm for up to 7 hours a t a 70C, pictured on the right.

Ha nd W a r

me rs