Hopefully, this post will enlighten you. Read on to find out.
Overview
The Houghton College Science Honors group, hereafter referred to as "Science Honors," intends to collect data from the atmosphere, analyze the data, and draw conclusions. So, what does this actually mean?
You've probably never heard of a radiosonde, however you probably know what a weather balloon is.
Well radiosonde is really just a fancy scientific term for the part of the weather balloon that does all the work. The radiosonde takes all of the measurements, stores it all as data, and sends it back to the scientists on the ground.
A few years ago it would have been impossible for anyone but climate scientists and weather stations to build a weather balloon, however the price of parts has become cheap enough that it is feasible to build one on a relatively small budget.
 |
| The relative altitudes of Mt. Everest, airplanes, and weather balloons. |
Collect Data
This is done using a weather balloon. Though it won't carry people like a hot air balloon, it will certainly do more than a party balloon. Sensors will take measurements about temperature, pressure, and the amount of visible light.
Analyze the Data
The balloons will return "raw" data. These data correspond directly to readings from the sensors, not actual conditions. We need to look at the raw data and convert the numbers we receive from the sensor into real data which has significance.
Draw Conclusions
Obviously, if you're going to collect data, you want to use it for something. We will use the data to either prove or disprove our original theories. When we have a more definite view of what we will be measuring we will make another post describing our hypotheses.
 |
| Picture credit to NOAA |
Physical Balloon
The balloons will be traveling high into the atmosphere. We hope that they will be able to reach the stratosphere, nearly 20 km above the ground!
Electronics
The balloon will be run by a small computer, called an Aruduino, which will need to be wired with sensors to take readings. An Arduino is not a very powerful computer, however it is small enough to fit in the palm of your hand, and runs on very little power.
 |
| Arduino Uno Microcontroller |
Programming
The balloons will be programmed to continually take measurements. These measurements will then be saved on the balloon so they can be downloaded after it is retrieved, as well as wirelessly transmitted in case the balloon is lost.
We have begun working on a protocol to transmit the data back to our computers on the ground. If you're interested, take a look at our last blog post that explains this in more detail.
--Andrew, Michael, Kayla, Dan, Olivia
No comments:
Post a Comment