I've subscribed to Make: magazine since the first issue and I'd love to try almost all of the projects they publish! I haven't had time for very many but when I saw the Helium Balloon Imaging Satellite project in Issue 24 I knew I had to do it.
I've wanted to learn more about electronics for a long time but so far have only dabbled. Also I'm determined that my two young daughters not succumb to the idea that girls cannot be good at science, engineering and math so I plan to expose them to as much of those as I can by exploring projects with (or at least in front of) them.
The balloon photography project uses a PICAXE microcontroller as a camera timer. It cost about $3. The camera is a “drugstore” digital camera that cost less than $10. I hacked the camera to install wires that allow the shutter to be operated by a relay that's activated by the microcontroller. It's programmed to take a picture every few seconds.
It took me four attempts to get everything right.
On our first attempt it felt at ground level like there was no wind, but soon after we launched the wind caught the balloons. They almost got tangled in our phone wire, which should have been my first clue to stop and try later. But I persevered and a minute later the balloons were hopelessly tangled about 40' up in a large tree. Big disappointment. At least with all my jerking the string to try to free the balloons the camera rig fell off and dropped into the snow so it wasn't also lost in the tree.
A few days later I bought more balloons to try again. Unfortunately I had a bad connection in my controller circuit and the camera only took two photos. We were losing daylight and I didn't have time to fix the circuit for another attempt that day. We took the balloons in the house overnight.
The next day we were excited to try again. Unfortunately attempt number 3 was an immediate failure because the balloons had lost lift overnight and would no longer lift the payload. Off to the store I went to buy more balloons.
Finally, attempt number 4 went off without a hitch. There was only a very slight breeze aloft and we didn't have any close encounters with trees. The camera took all 60 photos it can hold. Success!
We still had balloons and daylight so we decided to go for one more mission before rewarding the kids with the balloons. We had a near disaster when the breeze kicked up and took the balloons over the house and they became briefly entangled on the roof. We got a free roof inspection! (Roof looks good)
Fortunately when the breeze died the balloons freed themselves and we got a few more minutes of flight. The balloons were losing lift, though, and were barely overcoming the weight of the payload by that point. I had to carefully maneuver the craft past more trees but managed a successful recovery.
This project was fun and I learned a lot about microcontrollers and basic electronics. The kids loved seeing the balloons so high in the sky and they especially loved having a lot of balloons to play with when I was finished with them.
I plan to reuse the camera rig from a kite in the spring and summer.
Oh, you might ask why I didn't fly the contraption in a more open area. That would have defeated the purpose of getting pictures of our own house!
1 comment:
Since you are dabbling in electronics now, you may benefit from looking into a particularly useful segment of renewable energy and small communities off grid...
http://www.fieldlines.com/board/
These guys are *right* on the money, and you can share with the girls Tesla at his best 100+ years later. Building a small wind generator from scratch parts is a very doable thing. I believe in Make #5 they covered this topic.
I was scheduled to do the writeup for Issue #1 but felt the direction (generally a broad audience and LCD effect as a result) of the magazine was not to my liking and backed out.
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