|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| What is Eye in the Sky? | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| When we arrived at Aston University, we were
split up into 4 teams, which were then divided into a further 4 strands and
were told we had to fly a hot air balloon. We were the yellow team,
and the 4 strands were chemical engineering, mechanical engineering,
electronics, and multimedia/GIS. These 4 strands were given separate
tasks to do in order to produce a hot air balloon that would fly, and spend
enough time in the air in order to take some photos. Each team was
supplied with a balloon, 4 cat food tins (empty, of course!) 240 birthday
candles, 2 coat hangers and a tool kit. The chemical engineers had to measure the burn time of the candles for various burner designs and candle powers; determine the neutral buoyancy temperature of the balloon; decide the optimum candle power of the burner; and plan the launch procedure. The mechanical engineers had to determine the volume of the inflated balloon; measure the weight of the balloon and all associated equipment; design and construct a camera holder; assemble the balloon; and plan the launch procedure. The electronics had to take apart a digital camera, assemble a circuit board and attach it to the digital camera, in order to set it to take pictures at a regular interval during the flight of the balloon. The multimedia student had to georeference the photos to a coordinate system (e.g. the national grid); from the georeferenced photos, accurately measure the distance between two test points; and create a web diary recording your team’s progress throughout the event. |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||