Whenever we do a flight day, we try and have at least one student taking photos and documenting the process. Here are some Folsom Lake College students at our most recent BAP field day doing science – taking GPS coordinates, shooting the balloon with the laser rangefinder, and logging data.
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.
Field day with Jason Pittman’s (Geosciences) class yesterday. The balloon pulled well, I think thanks in part to the weight reductions we achieved with the new 3D printed picavet part.
Full dataset here: https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B1HizVK87qvsS3kxX3A4OGM4WFU&usp=sharing
Following a successful field day with students, the balloon had enough spirit to pull the iPhone up over the site of FLC’s new experimental garden. It may not look like much now, but there are plans for additional planter boxes, shrubs, and all sorts of growing goodness.
Here’s a screenshot of one of the many photo composites that students are working on with the data gathered from the balloon flight a couple of weeks ago:
MapKnitter is being finicky about exports, but hopefully that will resolve itself before long, and students will be able to get their hands on the stitched photos for further analysis.
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.
For Folsom Lake College’s 10th anniversary celebration, we rigged up the balloon to stream video to a monitor on the ground, using a custom rig with a POV camera, battery, and transmitter, all housed in an apple juice bottle rig.
Never having tried the setup before, we launched the balloon, and streamed the video to a little field monitor. Everything worked perfectly, and on the first try besides! Children seemed to appreciate the balloon’s eye view of the college.
We had to pull the balloon down and hide it from the falcons that were flown once or twice throughout the day. Apparently balloons are used in training the birds, and we were concerned that they would go after it.
After the falcons had finished their flights, we launched the balloon again, now streaming to a much bigger monitor stationed at our table. Once again, things worked exactly as planned. The video was surprisingly clear and the stream stable, save a few transmission hiccups from time to time.
Next steps include building a dual rig, with a camera for still images, and the streaming gear to aid in positioning the balloon. We also need to explore fins or other means of stabilizing the streaming rig, as it got to swinging pretty severely at times. It was attached directly to the string attachment point, so it’s entirely possible that hanging it from a picavet will take care of the swing.
With the easing of the helium shortage, we finally acquired a tank or two of the noble gas, and headed up to the El Dorado Center yesterday to launch our new imaging platform. First flights are always a little nerve-wracking, with safety considerations and weather variables and unknowns, but we drafted a protocol, filled the balloon, and sent it up.
We had used half the tank the other day on an aborted attempt – the balloon popped – so we ran out of gas a little short of the balloon’s capacity. While it lifted the picavet, it wasn’t especially enthusiastic about it. We brought it back to the ground, changed the 300# line to 100#, removed the bucket, and sent it back up. These weight tweaks worked well, and the balloon pulled the load gently but definitively.
A balloon is quite a different animal than a kite, and flying it took some getting used to. All in all, quite a bit less stressful than kites or quadcopters, as the helium counteracts (most of) the drop-out-of-the-sky, camera crushing effects of gravity. We were able to capture this nice image of the El Dorado County Master Gardeners Demonstration Garden, a work in progress, and one that we can hopefully document over time with additional flights.
Overall, a satisfying success. Next steps include constructing a new, lighter picavet specifically for the balloon, and finalizing the POV streaming rig we plan to fly over the crowd at a college event in October.