Helping students rig the balloon, with the 3D printed picavet in the foreground:
Lowering the rig to clear the canopy:
Nothing better than doing real science in the field with students (plus wearing a sweet safety vest):
Additional photos and datasets at the project blog dolookdown.org
Field day with Jason Pittman’s (Geosciences) mapping class yesterday. We flew the 3D printed picavet for the first time. After we worked the wetlands, two student volunteers agreed to walk the balloon up into campus, as I wanted to get shots of the garden. That little patch of green in the dry area (above) is the garden. Image below from a different flight for comparison.
The entire dataset can be found at the project blog (DoLookDown.org), as well as the images from our 2014 and 2015 flights of the same area. When I find the time, I plan to redesign and 3D print the picavet from the ground up, shaving some additional weight.
November 3, 2014. Clear and cool with a light breeze – a perfect morning for field work. Students from Professor Pittman’s GEOG 331 – Exploring Maps and Geographic Technologies course gathered in the parking lot at the north end of campus for some balloon aerial photography. Jason explained some of the basics and gave a safety orientation. Rule #1: Anyone handling the line must glove up!
As we filled the balloon, we realized that we had miscalculated the helium required. The tank wasn’t quite full, and the balloon wouldn’t pull the picavet with the Canon SX130. Forced to improvise, we clipped a much lighter iPhone rig (running the TimeLapse app) directly to the string attachment point, and we were ready to fly.
With the lighter camera setup, the balloon flew fine, and students walked the trails that run through the wetlands.
We uploaded the photos to Google Drive, and over the next week, students will use Map Knitter to stitch the photos together and georeference them.
