28 June 2017
BUILD IT YOURSELF
I have been an avid reader of Paul Verhage’s Near Space articles since the first one
appeared in Nuts & Volts many years ago, and have often thought it would be fun to
get involved with such a project. The opportunity arose several years ago after joining
the Project SMART space science summer program at the University of New
Hampshire (UNH) Institute for the Study of Earth Oceans and Space. Beyond the
campus, Project SMART also inspired high altitude ballooning activities at three area
high schools.
Build an Adaptable Controller
for Your Near Space
BALOONING
MISSIONS
By Richard Levergood and Maria Panacopoulos
■ FIGURE 1. The student team.
Part 1
Background
Londonderry High School
was one of the three
institutions, where one author
is a teacher and the other was
a student. Our after-school
club developed the original
electronics package described
in this article, and is proudly
showing the prototype
controller in Figure 1. After
using the controller for a few
years for ballooning, it became
apparent that it could also be
used as a general-purpose data
collector for in-class science
experiments.
