MIT Students Take Pictures from 93,000 ft on $150 Budget.

Re:MIT Students Take Pictures from 93,000 ft on $150 Budget. by cesare on Sunday September 13, 2009 @06:16PM (#820665)

They aren't the first to do something like this.

Here's a very similar project made in 2007:

http://www.natrium42.com/halo/flight2/

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Re:MIT Students Take Pictures from 93,000 ft on $150 Budget. by charltones on Monday September 14, 2009 @06:51AM (#821439)

Also a Cambridge, UK project started 2006: http://www.srcf.ucam.org/~cuspaceflight/nova.php

As well as taking photos, they've taken passengers: http://www.srcf.ucam.org/~cuspaceflight/images/nova9selected...

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Re:MIT Students Take Pictures from 93,000 ft on $150 Budget. by jmtame on Sunday September 13, 2009 @06:32PM (#820680)

i think the cost is the surprising factor about this story. taken from the site you posted:

Q:How much did it cost? A:The system that is presented is a little over-engineered for historical reasons as well as for future expansion and test purposes. It's possible to build a system for $500 with just a cellphone link and a microcontroller, but make sure that coverage is good where you intend to launch and use a good cellphone antenna.

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Re:MIT Students Take Pictures from 93,000 ft on $150 Budget. by cesare on Sunday September 13, 2009 @06:56PM (#820698)

True. But consider also that this has been made two years ago, with 2007 technology.

Edit: Take the camera for instance. The MIT students used a Canon PowerShot A470 (they bought it used from ebay) which costs $120 new and is 7 mega pixels. This guy used a similar camera (Canon PowerShot A70) which was only 3.1 mega pixels and costed $350 when it came out.

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Re:MIT Students Take Pictures from 93,000 ft on $150 Budget. by kreneskyp on Sunday September 13, 2009 @08:26PM (#820823)

Oregon State University launched a balloon to commemorate 100 million downloads of Firefox. They used a disposable camera with a simple timer wired to it. They didn't include a GPS unit though because it was "too expensive", the camera has yet to be found. The cannon would take better pictures, just pointing out that its not the cheapest route.

http://lug.oregonstate.edu/events/firefox/sky

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