Previous awards
2012 – accidentally deleted from site
AWARDS 2014
It has been another busy year for HAB enthusiasts around the world. Here are three projects that I think really pushed things on in the High Altitude Balloon world but there is still time to recommend a project. The winner will be named on 31st December 2014
Entry 1 Rock Zip High Balloons http://www.rockzip.com/
High balloon
It isn’t often that projects try to redesign the balloon but this year RockZip got kickstarter funding to develop super pressure balloons. If successful, this could really add a new dimension to long duration flights and ‘floating’ balloons. For more information read more…
Entry 2 Boomerang altitude control system. http://swsdt.com/products/
Smith & Williamson, LLC, a small US tech company, is developing a complete gas venting altitude control system for latex weather balloons. The Boomerang Flight, Altitude Control, and Termination System aims to provide balloon operators altitude control, longer duration flights, and controlled recovery options. In addition to altitude control, the system includes two independent means of flight termination, a suite of atmospheric and balloon sensors, on-board data recording, ports for GPS and radios, and supporting mission control software. As with the Rock Zip high balloons, this will hopefully lead to technology that will allow longer flights for amateurs who cannot afford expensive super pressure balloons, or whose kit isn’t suitable for small foil balloons.
Entry 3 Pi in the Sky http://www.pi-in-the-sky.com/
Dave Akerman and Anthony Stirk have been pushing the boundaries of radio tracking for years. This year they came up with an off the shelf SSDV module based on the Raspberry Pi computer. Here is Dave’s description of it:-
The board and software are based on what I’ve been flying since my first “Pi In The Sky “flight over 2 years ago, so the technology has been very well proven (approximately 18 flights and no losses other than deliberate ones!). So far the board itself has clocked up 5 successful flights, with the released open-source software on 3 of those. Here’s the board mounted to a model B (though we very strongly recommend use of a model A):
It comes in a kit complete with a GPS antenna, SMA pigtail (from which you can easily make your own radio aerial), stand-offs for a rigid mounting to the Pi board, and battery connectors. Software is on https://github.com/piinthesky, with installation instructions at http://www.pi-in-the-sky.com/index.php?id=support, or there is a pre-built SD card image for the tragically lazy. We do recommend manual installation as you’ll learn a lot.
For more information read more…
HAVE YOUR SAY! Let us know the project you think improved high altitude ballooning the most this year.
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