Near-Space Balloon Competition 2014-2015

Launch was a success!

Congratulations to teams for this year’s Near-Space Balloon Competition!  This year’s participants are:

Kindred High School: Team Royal Diamond

Kindred High School: Team Spatato

May-Port CG Middle & High School: Team MPCG Science Geeks

Northwood Middle School: Team Thunderstruck

Red River High School: Team Polaris

Shiloh Christian School: Team Absolute Zero (Because there’s nothing cooler)

Integration and initial judging took place on Friday November 21, 2014.  Presentations were given by graduate student leads Sean McCloat and Tim Buli, and by faculty member Dr. Sherry Fieber-Beyer (Judging Committee Chair).  Each team was given five minutes to present their payload, and then judges circulated to ask teams more questions about their science and engineering experiments while teams put the final touches on their experiments and payload containers.

After team payloads were examined to assure they met weight and size requirements, graduate student volunteers assisted in stringing them together for the next morning’s launch.  And although the cloud cover was looking borderline for Saturday’s launch, the sky was clear; the winds were low; and launch conditions were perfect!

Read the news article in the Grand Forks Herald here.

View a video of the 3 Go-Pro cameras along with altitude and time data put together by Space Studies alumnus Jonathan Schiralli here.

View a video by UND’s Division of University and Public Affairs on this year’s competition here.  Thank you Patrick Sweeney!

Check out WDAZ news coverage including student interviews here.

Teams are required to submit final reports one month following the launch.  Judges will then complete scoring and there will be a web conference award ceremony.  First, second, and third place teams will be awarded.  The first place team will also receive a Space Grant-sponsored field trip in North Dakota that is related to STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics).  Good luck to all as we complete this year’s competition!

Special thanks to all volunteers and the teachers who devoted extra time outside of regular classroom curriculum to this project.  Without you, this competition would not exist!

Volunteers: Marian Courtney, Karl Williams, Chris Buelke, Anne Longlet, Poonam Josan, Chris Follette, Jonathan Schiralli, Travis Nelson, Dr. Vadim Rygalov, Dr. Sherry Fieber-Beyer

Coordination team: Dr. Santhosh Seelan, Dr. Ron Fevig, Sean McCloat, Caitlin Nolby, Tim Buli