{"id":8593,"date":"2017-06-01T13:18:00","date_gmt":"2017-06-01T17:18:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ncseagrant.ncsu.edu\/coastwatch\/?page_id=8593"},"modified":"2024-06-18T12:28:07","modified_gmt":"2024-06-18T16:28:07","slug":"flying-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ncseagrant.ncsu.edu\/coastwatch\/flying-up\/","title":{"rendered":"Flying Up"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n\n
\"students
Students from Lenoir-Rhyne University get ready for a test launch of their high-altitude balloon. Photo by Doug Knight.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Members of the Lenoir-Rhyne University team participating in NASA\u2019s Space Grant Eclipse Ballooning Project have their work cut out for them.<\/p>\n

To document the total solar eclipse on Aug. 21, 2017, students at this university in Hickory, in the North Carolina mountains, have been designing a lightweight container to hold a payload \u2014 tracking equipment, cameras and sensors. The cameras will gather images of the sun and the moon\u2019s shadow. These pictures, in turn, will be shown live on the National Aeronautics and Space Administration\u2019s website and TV channel.<\/p>\n

But first, they are replacing the payload. At a test launch in April, the balloon soared 100,000 feet, then disappeared when the GPS systems failed during the descent.<\/p>\n

All pretty heady stuff, especially if you\u2019re into that kind of thing.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow many people do you work with who can say: Oh yeah, we worked with balloons today. We got to 100,000 feet and we took some pictures?\u201d says Larry Jump, one of the students on the Lenoir-Rhyne team.<\/p>\n

\u201cStudents love working with it,\u201d says Doug Knight, who teaches in the engineering physics department at Lenoir-Rhyne. \u201cIt\u2019s good for a whole cross-disciplinary set of students,\u201d from those who excel academically to those who are excellent tinkerers.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy experience is when students do things beyond what they think they can do, and there\u2019s a coolness factor and excitement to it, once they have success there, it bleeds into other parts of their way of thinking \u2014 academically, personally, professionally. They think they can do almost anything they set their mind to do. And if you can accomplish that in education, you\u2019ve done a darn good job,\u201d Knight adds.<\/p>\n

The project attracted students who wanted to put their knowledge into practice, but who might not have worked on such a project before.
\u201cEveryone went in confused, not knowing what to do. When we first saw the things involved, everything looked so foreign. But now it\u2019s completely changed,\u201d recalls Erik Carranza, a junior engineering physics major.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve had our share of dealing with issues and coming up with creative solutions to these issues, and all these are valuable assets and skills to be able to develop and to be able to carry forward to future employers,\u201d he adds. \u201cIt\u2019s helped me know what I\u2019m good at, what I\u2019m not good at. It\u2019s helped me discover talents that I didn\u2019t know I had.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sophomore Juan Hernandez joined the team as a way to get more involved in the university, to use his electrician skills and to pursue his interest in electrical engineering.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow, I\u2019m kind of thinking more aerospace, astronautical engineering. It changed my mind about what I want to do. Maybe do something in collaboration with electrical engineering and aerospace. It has got me thinking,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

At the April test launch, Hernandez showed up without a prelaunch checklist, a mistake that won\u2019t happen again.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re a lot more prepared. We know what our mistakes were and how we can fix them,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

For Jump, this project is more than just about a career, coding and electronics. It\u2019s about role models, dreaming big and aiming high.<\/p>\n

He brings his two elder daughters, aged 13 and 11, to balloon launches. His intent is to show them successful women scientists and researchers at work. Jump wants them to realize \u201cthat we can reach the edge of space, and we can do it here, from a small town that I\u2019m from, that my professor is from.\u201d<\/p>\n

When possible, his wife and parents, as well as his other children \u2014 another girl and three boys aged between 8 and 10 \u2014 come along too.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey see me hands-on,\u201d he explains. \u201cAnd then we get to see the pictures back from the balloons that we sent. And they say, \u2018Oh. Well I saw you do that. I know that I can do that now.\u2019 I\u2019m trying to show them what can be done.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Lenoir-Rhyne team will launch their balloon from the Pisgah Astronomical Research Institute in Rosman in southwestern North Carolina. To find the sites of other launches, go to eclipse2017.nasa.gov\/event-locations<\/a> and select NASA\u2019s Space Grant Ballooning Project.<\/p>\n

Read the related article on the solar eclipse here<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

This article was published in the Summer 2017<\/a> issue of <\/em>Coastwatch.<\/em><\/p>\n

For contact information and reprint requests, visit ncseagrant.ncsu.edu\/coastwatch\/contact\/<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Members of the Lenoir-Rhyne University team participating in NASA\u2019s Space Grant Eclipse Ballooning Project have their work cut out for them. 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