This week was our second to last week of class, and our first full week post-launch! The students were all very excited to watch the videos from our cameras, and to work on creating the final class video about our project, documenting all the class activities throughout the semester in a five-minute video showing off our progress and achievements.
While the students in the class were working on their video, Antohne Smyth, a student in Prof. Andy Opel’s media production class, created a fantastic 360 degree video for us from our launch videos, which we made available online here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YX6d460KDbU. We very much enjoyed watching this video in our Google Cardboard devices, which helped give the virtual reality perspective to our project!
We also discussed some lessons learned from the launch / methods for improving our approach, specifically way to extend the battery life on the GoPro cameras (the batteries on the cameras gave out at about 18,000 meters). In addition, we explored options for adding flotation devices to the orange twine connecting the payload to the parachute in a way that wouldn’t obscure the cameras but offer the chance of salvaging the cameras if the payload had landed in a lake.