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>> [music]
>>BRENT SALMI: Well, we’re the amateur radio club here at RIT, K2GXT, and I’m Brent Salmi,
KBL1QV. I’m the president of the club, and behind me we have some of our members working
on parts of our high-altitude balloon that we’re going to be sending up during
Imagine RIT.
We wanted to make a reusable platform that we can experiment with that we can have fun
designing an actual system with engineering principles built behind it.
In my notebook here, there’s sort of an individualized subsystem. See, this is the
actually subsystems of the project—a little flight computer here, an embedded microcontroller,
our sensors, our GPS tracking system. This is our radio we’ll use to get that
data back.
>>[drilling]
>>BRYCE SALMI: This is the top cover for our payload for the insulation that protects it
from the negative-50 or so degrees that we expect to see. We need to drill holes so that
the support lines from the parachute and the balloon can hold this and let be able to lift up.
>>[drilling]
>>BRYCE SALMI: Actually, we need to keep going up and up.
>>STEVE GIANNATTI: What we’re doing is testing the parachute for the payload. We have an
idea of the decent rate and the impact the ground or whatever it lands on will have on
the payload, the frame and the insolating foam.
3, 2, 1, drop!
>>[laughter]
>>Pretty good. >>Very nice.
>>BRENT SALMI: So we’ll have a live display showing on Google Maps and Google Earth where
it’s located. People can visit a website so they can see themselves where it is. You
know, it’s been a lot of work. We’ve had some late nights so we can get these certain
systems down or components ordered and, you know, it’s been a lot of fun.
>>[music]