The Ballooney Toons team (Bodie Callaghan, Sophie Housser, Hannah Bernthal, Grant Wilson, Braden Rock, Spersh Goyal, and Veer Vohra) designed and launched a high-altitude weather balloon payload to collect atmospheric data across the troposphere and into the stratosphere. Their one-cubic-foot, 2.8 lb payload carried an Arduino-based data acquisition system, GPS, pressure, temperature, humidity, and carbon monoxide sensors, two cameras, and a heating pad to maintain internal temperatures. The balloon reached approximately 31,000 meters, and the collected data closely matched established atmospheric models, particularly the NASA Empirical Model, which outperformed a simpler exponential model above 10,000 meters. The team also conducted several independent experiments: estimating Earth’s radius from high-altitude photos (achieving results within the expected error margin given lens distortion), studying CO concentration by altitude, analyzing air resistance during descent, and investigating how surface color affects heat absorption. While they explain limitations, including some data lost post-cutdown, the mission successfully validated atmospheric theory and demonstrated the team’s engineering and scientific depth.

Photo: Photo Courtesy of The Ballooney Toons Team