Campsmount

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.

With our balloon going up to and beyond 20 miles high and potentially experiencing wind speeds of 100mph+ the whole sytem could travel miles away.

We are using a SPOT GPS unit to track and find the whole system when it returns to earth to save time and potential loss.

You can view LIVE the journey it is going to take by following the link below. The GPS updates every ten minutes.

http://share.findmespot.com/shared/faces/viewspots.jsp?glId=0M8hOpTg3hPvHzZxtETjaAzvjEfC1p9ZT

On the 9th November we will be using this for the first time in a little game of hide and seek. Pupils will have to go and find a teacher who has driven off in his car and hidden. They will try and find him using the school minibus and gps tracking.

Thanks to Jessica Young in Year 8 who let us know that her uncle has let a weather balloon off with the precious payload of a teddy bear.

The flight was a success and teddy returned to Earth all ok.

It is great to hear that there are people already doing fantastic projects out of school.

Below are some pictures from the flight.

They say a photo says a 1000 words.

It is always great to see students enjoying what they are doing and enjoying learning. I am fairly sure that this photo speaks highly of being proud and certainly excited about what they are doing.

Well done chaps and keep up the good work.

From Campsmount in Space

In this session students have created some models of the payload attachment for the balloon flight experimenting and thinking where the cameras and GPS device will be attached.

We then did a highly scientific test by throwing them out of the staff room window to see if they work. All of them worked but it is now up to the students to make their minds up which will be best suited for the flight.

In the next few weeks they will be building the real thing and testing this in a tethered flight.

In session 4 students had a play with the Zombie video footage to figure out how they can edit video to create a useable movie.

Mr D. Macfarlane one of our excellent I.C.T. Teachers ran the session showing students all the video editing options open to them.

Coming soon will be the finished Zombie Movie.

Student will now be able to edit the video footage from the balloon flight ready to show to the public what they have done.

COMING SOON……

Whilst testing a new formula for Condonite J a slight problem arose in S.T.E.M club!#

Last nights S.T.E.M session involved the students using the GoPro cameras that will be going on the balloon that will be off up to space.

To stay in touch with the progress of this awesome project take a look at:

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

As a group we decided to produce a random zombie video while trying out the awesome GoPro HD video cameras. These are the actual cameras that will be going to the edge of space!

The students worked hard and had loads of fun producing a zombie flick.

It will be edited next week.

A massive thanks to Mrs Smith who ran session 2 which looked at all the mathematics involved in the weather balloon project.

Mrs Smith ran a very fun and brain teasing session which all the students enjoyed at got a great deal out of it.

This project simply oozes Maths and it is great to see students use this in a practical way.

Did you know that travelling at the speed of light you would go around the world 7.5 times every second… WOW!!

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