Up, Up & Away: Weather Balloon Club

The club started out in 2022 as a project in my Industrial Design class. A group of 4 students designed and programmed a payload which they wanted to send to near-space to collect data related to the atmosphere above Guatemala. My role was to serve as the mentor and director to the program.

This past year, our team grew to 16 students. The group was tasked with sending up 2 separate balloons and recovering them when they returned back to earth. Here is the 2023-24 Weather Balloon Club after they recovered both balloons. After analyzing the data collected, it was determined one of the balloons soared to over 105,000 ft above sea level before bursting and returning back to earth.

In year two, instead of trying to do the entire activity in one day, the team elected to spend the night prior in the finca where we would launch the following morning.

After a 3am wake-up call, teams were responsible for prepping their balloons for a 6am sharp launch. After several meetings with the DGAC (Guatemala version of FAA) we were allowed a 90 minutes no-fly zone above half of Guatemala starting at 6am sharp.

After returning from the launch and analyzing the data, our student team was invited to present their findings to the Board of Directors and a select group of guests. As the club mentor and director, I encourage students to take the lead in presentations and proudly own their achievements.

At 6:00am sharp, our team of middle and high school students successfully launched two weather balloons into near-space

One of our goals this year was to capture on video the burst of the balloon. The students set up a camera aimed at the balloon in hopes of capturing this moment

Another goal was to capture the Earth’s curvature, which required sending a camera to an altitude of over 50,000 feet. This particular photo was taken at approximately 80,000 feet above sea level.