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The sky's no limit for P-O technology teacher [Centre Daily Times, State College, Pa.](Centre Daily Times (State College, PA) Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) June 10--PHILIPSBURG -- The wind blew, the balloon swayed, and Randy Edelman felt a little nervous. If everything went as planned, the weather balloon would launch between 60,000 and 90,000 feet into the air and his students would end up with photos that showed the curvature of the earth, the thin veil of its atmosphere and the black of space. But there were several ways for the plan to go wrong. "We were really worried that it was going to just blow straight out into the trees and pop, and that would be it," he said of the balloon. "Or get tangled up right at the ball field." Edelman is a technology education teacher at Philipsburg- Osceola Area Junior High School. He owns a blue T-shirt that's a riff on the famous "I Love New York" one -- in his case, the "New York" is replaced with "science" and the image of the heart is replaced with the symbol of an atom. His classroom has posters of a Mars rover, LEGO engineering projects and a guide to green building design. He got the idea to launch a weather balloon into the stratosphere a year ago after reading a newspaper article about someone in England doing the same. Then he learned MIT students did accomplishing the project after spending only $150. "I thought it was going to be cool, because we would get a lot of interesting pictures that we wouldn't usually be able to take," said 13-year-old Neena Selfridge, a student in his independent study class. A $500 educational grant from McDonald's paid for most of the costs. While planning the project, Edelman worked with Seth Wilberding, a doctoral student at Penn State who's been spending about one day a week at the junior high school this year through a partnership funded by the National Science Foundation. In class, students calculated how altitude, pressure and climate would impact ascent and descent rates. There were several other projects for students and teachers to tackle. They painted a Styrofoam cooler orange, so it'd be easier to spot. They posted messages onto the cooler, letting whoever found it know how to contact Edelman and that there was nothing toxic, flammable or dangerous inside. "Harmless Student Science Experiment. $40 Reward," read one message that was accompanied by two yellow smiley faces. Inside the cooler, they packed an old Canon digital camera, which they purchased for about $55 and reprogrammed to take photos every 12 seconds. They also put in a cellphone with a GPS device, which cost about $45, and a router antenna attached to boost the signal. And since temperatures can go to below 50 degrees Fahrenheit at 90,000 feet, they packed in newspapers and a few hand warmers to keep the electronics safe. All that plus the parachute put the total weight of the payload at a little more than two pounds. They did a test run in May, by tethering the balloon with a long rope, and learned they needed more minutes for the phone and a larger memory card for the camera. And they filed paperwork with the Federal Aviation Administration. Then Thursday, June 2, it was launch day. About 20 students and a half dozen teachers gathered at the high school's baseball field. Since the wind was so strong, they pumped extra helium into the weather balloon, so it would pop earlier and wouldn't travel as far away from Philipsburg. Edelman described maneuvering the weather balloon felt like flying a kite. At one point, the balloon swayed low to the ground, but Edelman and others were able to straighten it out. A few seconds later, they let go and the balloon floated up and out of sight. The launch was captured on video. Students greeted the success with cheers and a few described it as simply "awesome." Then the tracking started. Edelman and Wilberding worried the device would end up in a river or somewhere else they couldn't retrieve it. After 72 minutes in the air, the cooler landed about 90 miles away in Newport, between Lewistown and Harrisburg. It was stuck in a tree, 70 feet in the air. On Sunday, Edelman and another teacher used a large slingshot device to loosen the cooler. It fell to the ground, the parachute deployed again, and the electronics inside landed safely and undamaged. And this week, Edelman had 388 pictures to show his students. There were aerial shots of Interstate 99, U.S. Route 322, Philipsburg, State College and other local landmarks. And they had the photos taken 60,000 to 90,000 feet, two or three times as high as planes fly. That's considered near space. "I was pretty amazed," Neena Selfridge said. Ditto for the teachers. "It was thrilling," Wilberding said. "I don't think I've ever held anything that was that high up in the atmosphere." Ed Mahon can be reached at 231- 4619. ___ To see more of The Centre Daily Times, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.centredaily.com. Copyright (c) 2011, Centre Daily Times, State College, Pa. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. For more information about the content services offered by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services (MCT), visit www.mctinfoservices.com, e-mail [email protected], or call 866-280-5210 (outside the United States, call +1 312-222-4544) |