HR: 1340h
AN: ED53A-0326    [Abstracts]
TI: A Low-Cost Sounding Ballon Experiment
AU: * Saba, M M
EM: msaba@dge.inpe.br
AF: Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas Espaciais, Av dos Astronautas, 1758 CEA/DGE, S Jose dos Campos, SP 12224-010 Brazil
AU: Mirisola, L G
EM: luiz.mirisola@gmail.com
AF: Instituto de Sistemas e Rob¢tica, Dept de Eng. Electrot‚cnica - Univ. de Coimbra Polo II, Coimbra, 3030-290 Portugal
AU: Fernandes, G G
EM: ggf88@bol.com.br
AF: Col‚gio Poliedro / Clube de Ciˆncias Quark, R. Teopompo de Vasconcelos, 86, S Jose dos Campos, SP 12243-830 Brazil
AB: Watching the meteorological balloons customarily launched from our city, we wondered how we could develop an experiment to allow our students to effectively gather data about the low atmosphere and at the same time keep our limited financial budget. When you hear about atmospheric balloons, you usually think about balloons with large envelopes of nylon or mylar with payloads between 1 or 10 kg. They ascend to very high altitudes, have a data radio transmitter, and are not recoverable. This setup would be too expensive for us. In order to keep the cost low, the payload containing the data recorded had to be recovered, and therefore, the balloon must not go tens of kilometers away. Based on some estimates of ascension speed for small balloons and probable horizontal wind intensities, we decided that in order to easily recover the payload we had to limit its ascension to about 2 km high. At this altitude, the payload would have to be released from the balloon by means of a timer. Our envelope consists of four latex 1-m diameter balloons (the biggest we could get) of the kind used at children's parties. Altogether they had a net buoyancy capacity of 500 g, enough to lift a mini tape recorder, batteries and simple electronic circuits that transform the atmosphere temperature into sound frequency.
UR: http://www.clubequark.org.br
DE: 0805 Elementary and secondary education
DE: 0845 Instructional tools
DE: 0850 Geoscience education research
SC: Education and Human Resources [ED]
MN: Fall Meeting 2005