Campsmount Technology College

I am extremely pleased to announce that the Campsmount Technology College S.T.E.M (Science, Technology, Engineering an Mathematics) Club has managed to send up a weather balloon with a GoPro Camera and GPS unit to 100,000ft, nearly 20 miles high, and then recover it again.

The flight lasted nearly 2 hours and was tracked throughout by one of our students, Joe Lindley in Year 9, in his “Mission Control”. For nearly 40 minutes we lost the GPS signal due to how high it was but it thankfully came back on and the balloon popped at 100,000ft and the system came down on a parachute. The unit landed in Caunton Near Newark and had travelled 50 miles down South from School. Two Sixth Form students Andrew Wigglesworth and Rebecca Smith jumped in the Mini with me and chased the balloon down the A1 only stopping for a quick refuel at McDonalds. Joe guided us with pinpoint accuracy to the exact spot where it had landed. After asking a rather surprised and slightly confused cattle farmer if we could go and get it from one of her fields we set off for a walk for a mile or so and found the system sitting happy with everything working fine still in the middle of a field.

The video is nearly 60mins long and was only cut short due to the vacuum inside the camera casing collapsing one of the buttons down. It is a simply outstanding view and you can see our school and all surrounding villages. At some points you can see the River Ouse snaking towards the Humber and just on the horizon the North Sea.

A simply amazing achievement and a massive WELL DONE to all the S.T.E.M. Club students, staff and Smartassess who have made this project possible.

The sky is no longer the limit!!

Mr S. P. Huntridge.

A quick fly over the new Campsmount Technology College using the S.T.E.M Clubs DJI F450 Quadcopter and a GoPro camera. The school is looking simply outstanding.

Mr Huntridge.

Using a DJI F450 NAZA Quadcopter with a GoPro sportscam Campsmount S.T.E.M Club has yet again managed to get some fantastic aerial footage. We will soon be setting free our weather balloon to 100,000ft and the footage from that should be outstanding. If you want to know more please feel free to pop along to S.T.E.M Club on a Tuesday evening in D2.

If you live in Campsall village can you spot your house in the video below?

Mr Huntridge.

On Thursday 19th January Campsmount S.T.E.M Club will be looking to the stars and with a powerful telescope to see what we can find. At the moment Jupiter and the Andromeda Galaxy are clearly visible on a clear night and make for simply stunning viewing. The pictures below have been taken through the telescope we will be using, click on them to make them bigger. Viewing it with the naked eye is an experience that will leave you speechless.

We will be running this from 6:30pm WEATHER PERMITTING till 7:15pm. If there is a thick covering of cloud or raining it will not be possible to view anything.

The telescope will be set up on the parish field and parents and students will be more than welcome to come along and have a look. If anyone has a telescope and wants to bring it along feel free to do so as guidance can be given on what to look at and how to set it up.

Mr S. P. Huntridge.

The Moon.

Jupiter and to the left one of her moons.

Video footage from the test flight.

At S.T.E.M club we have managed to perform a tethered launch using the weather balloon that we are planning to send up to near space, 100,000ft. We sent it up to about 200ft with twin lines holding it so we could safely test all the systems. The balloon and all the systems worked perfect as did the whole team with each member having their own specific and very important job to do. The GPS pinpointed where the system was using Google Maps and the video camera took some great quality video and stunning pictures which you can see below.

You can keep up to date with the project at:

http://www.campsmount.com/category/students/campsmount-in-space/

The project is open to all students and staff and we would love to see more pop along and join this exciting project.

Mr Huntridge and the S.T.E.M Team.

A link to a Youtube video on how to tie the balloon.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JiWyBXtLE5A&feature=player_embedded#!

Well the build has started for the payload system which is going to carry the equipment up to Space.

Students have been looking at insulation for the extreme temperatures and various ways to connect the cameras and GPS.

It is nearly ready and will soon be tested on a tethered flight with 1000m of line! Hopefully it will not snap and the balloon will be able to be winched back down and we will be able to recover some awesome photos and video.

We now wait for a clam day!

In this session the group of students looked at how they could build the payload system and finalised any plans so they could start building asap. The group watched BBC’s Man Lab in which James May and his team sent up a weather balloon. Our team liked the idea of using the spherical polystyrene ball as it both looks good and can also insulate all the equipment from the extreme cold air. The team also decided on using buzzers and flashing lights to help find the payload when it returns to earth.

Next week is the build of this exciting project and within a few weeks we should be ready for our first test launch.

Below is a screen shot from BBC’s Man Lab program which is on BBC.co.uk/iplayer if you want to see what they got up to.

In session 6 we played hide n’ seek with the GPS unit.

Two of the sixth form students went out in their car with the Spot GPS unit. It was then up to the rest of us to try and find them. This was a great test to see if we can easily find the GPS unit. This will be attached to the balloon when it goes up and will enable us to find it when it comes back down to Earth.

We had some students at school viewing the GPS live online and this “Mission control” was able to relay information to the chase vehicle, the school minibus.

It took us about 25 minutes to track down the sixth formers who had hidden down a lane. The GPS had pin pointed them exactly.

Below is a screenshot of the GPS online tracker showing where we went.