SHP STEM BALLOONS

Seton Hall Prep celebrated the completion of a remarkable around the world trip by a pair of high-pressure balloons launched 10 days before from the Kelly Athletic Complex by students in The Prep's STEM class.

After several years of balloon launches designed to achieve great altitude (90,000', or near-space in one year), this year’s STEM group took a pass on a mere cookie-cutter project, deciding instead to go for distance. Adding spice to the completely student-run project was the fact that part of the mission was to keep several remote students involved in the process. Every one of the group's decisions during the month-long planning and design stage was aimed at getting a pair of "feather-weight" balloons and payloads off the ground and riding the winds at an optimum 45,000 feet.

The launches took place on Wednesday, January 27 during an afternoon fraught with peril due to high winds, dangerous even by Kelly Athletic Complex standards, which threatened to send the slow-rising balloons into the trees along the cliff fronting First Mountain. The liftoffs, an hour apart, took place following assembly by the STEM crew in the maintenance facility next to the baseball field. Each of the super-lightweight balloons would carry a solar-powered APRS radio transmitter weighing in a mere 14 grams; 6 gr. of tape and fishing line added to the payload, amazingly topping things off at the combined weight of 20 paper clips. Previous years' payloads, going for height, weighed in at 1200 grams! Helium gas would have lifted the payloads to a height too low to avoid bad weather patterns, so hydrogen was the choice to maintain the flights in a hopefully calmer zone above the weather. Nevertheless, dangers still abounded; a little rain or evening condensation would be enough to upset the delicate bouyancy/weight balance and send the project into the ocean or someone's backyard. Any miscalculation sending it too high could result in over-expansion of the hydrogen, resulting in a catastrophic tear of the balloon material itself.

Just getting the balloons out to the launch site proved to be a challenge. After assembly the team surrounded the delicate payloads with a plastic shields to protect them from the howling winds on the way out, for the first launch to center field on Porcello Field. The anticipated agonizingly slow ascent rate left barely enough time to clear the trees behind home plate. The second launch an hour later took place from the top of the bleachers at the football field to give a little head start altitude-wise. Both payloads disappeared from contact with the tracking app shortly after passing NY harbor as darkness set in, leaving the transmitter without sufficient power. With no radio receivers mid-ocean, the trip across the Atlantic took place in radio silence, but Friday morning one of the balloons (KD2VGT-2 ) reported back from 200 miles off the coast of France. From there on, it was pretty much smooth sailing for both payloads, riding along at anywhere between 45 and 185 mph. By Sunday they were near Italy, Monday over Israel and Syria, followed by a long radio blackout as there were insufficient receivers to track them all the way to China’s eastern region. Traveling within about 250 miles of each other KD2VGT-1 and KD2VGT-2 completed their circumnavigation of the earth Sunday during the Super Bowl. They both now continue on their way as they they have begun their second trip around the world. You can follow their progress and see the most recent 7 days of their route here.



Director of the STEM Project is Science teacher David Snyder ’89; enjoying the remarkable continuing success of their project, the members of the class are Video/Education producers Lucas Confalonieri and Alexis Mollet; Tech Coordiinators Michael Lupton and Matthew Noviello; Project Managers Jordan Quiles and Patrick McGowan; Build Coordinators Andrew Bisig and Albert Bonardi; Research Coordinators CJ Landi, Jay Cowan and Benny Bai.