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Announcement: 2016 Academic High Altitude Conference, Erick Agrimson

2017 Academic High Altitude Conference

No abstract provided.

A High-Altitude Balloon Platform For Determining Regional Uptake Of Carbon Dioxide Over Agricultural Landscapes, Angela M. Bouche

2017 Academic High Altitude Conference

Interactions between the biosphere and atmosphere are an important part of the global carbon cycle, and quantifying the carbon dioxide exchanges between them is helpful in predicting the uptake of carbon dioxide from anthropogenic sources by the biosphere in the future. In the Midwestern United States, agricultural systems cover a large part of the landscape, so understanding their role in influencing the global carbon budget is crucial as anthropogenic sources of carbon dioxide grow larger. Carbon dioxide exchanges can be measured by eddy covariance at the ecosystem level (bottom-up approach) or regionally by inversion techniques (top-down approach). Here we describe …

Nsf Iuse Workshop, Bernhard Beck-Winchatz, Donald Takehara, James Flaten, Erick Agrimson, Kaye Smith, Gordon C. Mcintosh, Hank N. Voss, Stacy A. Wenzel

2017 Academic High Altitude Conference

No abstract provided.

Stem Education Research: Useful Ideas For College Instructors Using Ballooning, Stacy A. Wenzel

2017 Academic High Altitude Conference

Stratospheric ballooning is a tool of enormous promise to help STEM college faculty foster highly engaged learning of science for a wide range of students at a wide range of institutions. High altitude ballooning offers a platform for investigating science and engineering across many fields. Ballooning has been used in courses and experiences for not just undergraduate science majors, but also all undergraduates—including future teachers who, in turn, are the key to improving K-12 science education. Technological advances are lowering the cost of and expertise levels required to make launches and analyze data.

Ballooning offers a context within which faculty …

Building An Undergraduate Cohort In High Altitude Ballooning, Mike Davis

2017 Academic High Altitude Conference

City Colleges of Chicago (CCC), in partnership with DePaul University and the Illinois Space Grant Consortium, has recently been awarded a grant from NASA to develop a research and education program in high-altitude ballooning. The project builds on the Chicago Initiative for Research and Recruitment in the Undergraduate Sciences (CIRRUS) model of undergraduate research and community college/four year college collaborative projects, a successful NSF-funded collaboration between DePaul and CCC. The project has four goals: (1) initiate a year-round undergraduate research program to recruit promising community college students into the STEM disciplines, (2) provide tuition support and fellowships to support student …

Nasa Nebraska High Altitude Ballooning And The Fab Lab, Kendra Sibbernsen, Michael Sibbernsen

2017 Academic High Altitude Conference

The NASA Nebraska High Altitude Ballooning (N-NHAB) program has collaborated on projects with the Fab Lab at Metropolitan Community College (MCC) in Omaha, NE. Based on the MIT Center for Bits and Atoms, the Fab Lab contains 3D printers, laser cutters, CNC machines, and much more. In its trial phase, the Fab Lab encouraged projects from the sciences. In response to this request, one of these projects involved a HAB student who wanted to streamline custom circuitry for measuring the efficiency of solar cells. The circuit pathways were designed and precisely cut from a copper sheet and the laser cutter …

Using Tank Pressure To Determine The Lift Of A Balloon, Sarah M. Biver

2017 Academic High Altitude Conference

An important aspect of high altitude ballooning is accuracy regarding the calculation of helium inflation in the balloon. If the balloon is over-filled it will increase rapidly in velocity and burst too quickly to record data. If the balloon is under-filled the rate of ascension will be too slow or not at all. This paper highlights the importance of accuracy in helium inflation by examining a method that uses pressure to control the inflation of a high altitude balloon. On every helium tank there is a pressure gauge, which can be used to monitor the change in pressure. Using that …

Parafoil Recovery Of A High Altitude Balloon Payload, Chelsea Velasquez, Zachariah Benedict

2017 Academic High Altitude Conference

The Recovery Guidance System is a subproject of Iowa State Universities’ High Altitude Ballooning Experiments in Technology (HABET) group. The system is designed to avoid common hazards during descent including large area objects such as populated areas and roadways, as well as smaller objects such as trees in a field, with an accuracy within tens of meters. RGS provides guidance for the payload using a two servo system aboard the payload in conjunction with GPS and radio communication. Navigation will be handled by a mixture of GPS and video analysis. For guidance, only longitudinal and directional dynamics of the payload-parafoil …