1

S4 DATABalloon Flight – August 30, 2014

Figure 4.5: GPSReceiver with helicalantenna

2

RIDDLES

Do you like Riddles? TIME OUT! For Science:

Barometer An instrument that measure the pressure of air Important for weather... Usually:

High(er) pressure means good weather Low(er) pressure means bad weather

Including tornadoes and hurricanes!

The Riddle: What is another name for a Barometer?

3

TIME OUT! FOR PICTURES

Did you all enjoy the August 2014 launch?

We even had a balloon:

4

S4

And it carried several S4 payloads

That returned data that looked like

5

GRAPH

And when you graph Altitude (from GPS) versus time (from GPS) Barometric pressure (from barometer) vs. time (from

GPS) It looks like this:

6

GRAPH REDUX

But what if we flip the pressure graph upside down?

7

GRAPH RE-REDUX

And stretch it?

Then: 97600 Pascals ==same place as== 1275 feet 97275 Pascals ==same place as== 1375 feet 96950 Pascals ==same place as== 1475 feet

8

THE MORAL OF THE STORY

So we could tell… … the altitude…

… if we knew the barometric pressure!

So now do you know… What’s another name for a barometer?

An ALTIMETER!

(Disclaimer: It’s not quite that simple… but close: http://www.eaa1000.av.org/technicl/instcal/instcal.htm) Easier

than a Tape

Measure!!

9

BUT WHAT DO YOU SEE IN THE DATA??

Figure 4.5: GPSReceiver with helicalantenna

Figure 4.9:The accelerometer Figure 4.10:

The magnetometer

Figure 4.11:The barometric pressure/temperature sensor

Figure 4.12:The humidity/temperature sensor