School Space Race : Leicester – How high can you go?
Which school can send a probe closest to space? Competition open to all schools in the Leicester, Coventry, Rugby area. Students must be between 11 and 18 years old. Maximum number of entrants is 20.
Launch date: A day within the week of 26th – 30th June 2016.
Launch site to be confirmed.
Rules and judging
Entries must be made by Friday 26th May. The launch day will be decided within the week beginning Monday 19th June. The winner will be the balloon payload to fly the highest and be recovered on the launch day.
Equipment that must be used, includes:-
- Latex balloon
- Helium lifting gas
- Independently verifiable altimetry and tracking by gps. This can include a radio tracker as well as satellite messenger/gps data logger combination.
No weight restriction other than that imposed by CAA. We advice that entrants keep payload weights within the ‘light’ category below 2000g.
Balloon size upper limit of 1600gm. No lower limit on balloon size.
Registering for the competition
Entrants should email the following information to chris@nearspacephotography.co.uk with ‘STUDENT SPACE RACE’ as the subject:
School name and competitors group name
Contact name
Supervising teacher name and email address
To participate in the competition, the school has to agree to the competition terms and conditions. They may do this by signing the student-space-race-terms-and-conditions.
Requirements of competitors
Provide own 3rd party insurance to cover staff and students taking part. Also to insure against damage caused by balloon or payload.
Provide helium and weather balloon. Sponsorship will be sort and some of these costs may be covered.
Competition support
A set or resources will be provided by the competition organisers, Near Space Photography.
Learning opportunities
Physics – gas laws
ICT – Raspberry Pi programming
Geography – Weather – state of the atmosphere
CDT – material properties
Media – Aerial photography
Balloon News 