GPS tracking is on track

Since finding the camera payload is a pretty important part of the 'mission', a GPS system is the second most important passenger other than the cameras.  Past solutions sometimes were fairly complicated, consisting of GPS receivers, an Arduino/microprocessor board, and a transmitter.  Maybe it's not that complicated, but there are much more simple ways of doing the same thing.  Like I mentioned before, there are at least two examples of people using only a GPS enable phone.

Going for the easiest, COTS solution, I picked the Motorola i296 prepaid phone ($49.99 at BestBuy, $0.35 a day for unlimited data). You'd be surprised that a simple little candy bar phone that looks like it belongs in the late 90's would be capable of live GPS tracking (I was!).

I've always hated the Motorola UI because it was terrible.  Thankfully, it isn't too much of a pain to set up the phone.  All one needs to do is install a small Java program provided by the tracking site InstaMapper. It's a totally free and totally awesome site.  I'll send out a link later where people can track the balloon live on launch day. 

 

Granted this isn't the most robust solution for GPS tracking, since it needs to be within range of a cell tower to transmit the GPS data.  This isn't a huge issue, because I care more about where the payload is at 0 ft than I care about where it is at 80,000 ft (though that would be nice too).

As you can see, the phone is all set up and ready to go!  I'll make sure the battery is freshly charged, but other than that, she's ready to track.

A new project!

I often get ideas for cool new projects, sometimes original, and other times I'm inspired by what other people are doing.  In this case, I was mainly inspired by the success and simplicity of this project. (Shouldn't be surprised by what kids at MIT can do.) Of course there was also this British guy who got his balloon up to 22 miles, and this dad from NY who used his iPhone for video and GPS tracking.  I definitely got jealous every time I read a new story about this.

In case you can't tell by now, my plan is to strap some cameras to a big helium balloon and launch it from the desert.  From what I've seen, no one has ever tried this in Los Angeles or Southern California (and maybe not even on the West Coast).  I figure it's about time someone does.  Of course launching it is one of the easier parts of this whole project (just let go).  Recovering the cameras and images is obviously the ultimate goal.  I'll be using the same GPS tracking method as Project Icarus, since it's cheap and also lets other people track it in real time on the web.  I'll have at least 2 cameras going up- one for the horizontal view and one looking down.  The shot to get with the horizontal camera is the curved surface of the Earth with the black backdrop of space.  (The balloon won't technically go to space, just the stratosphere)  For the down camera, the shot to get is the coastline of Los Angeles and maybe Catalina and the Channel Islands if things work out just right.

So I've created this site to keep track of my progress, which should keep me motivated and also save me the time of documenting everything later.  Expect plenty of pictures and updates over the next several weeks until launch.