On March 21st, Mike (Mr. Mike) Vigent and his 8th grade science class at Macon County Middle School attempted to launch two weather balloons, and although the launches were unsuccessful, most people saw them. Vigent says failure is not the same. It becomes science.
“Today was a test run to iron out any issues,” he said. “The balloon will carry 14 cameras. UT is sponsoring an effort to video and photograph the April solar eclipse at an altitude of 140,000 feet. We will launch from a location in Missouri. The planetarium there will use the video from our flight to create an interactive virtual reality experience, akin to riding a balloon into a solar eclipse.”
Vigeant says this is a big issue, not just for MCJH, but for everyone interested in science.
“We’re aiming for a world height record,” Vigiant said. “The current record is 138,000 feet. The balloons that will be launched on the day of the eclipse will weigh 4,000 grams, which is very large, larger than the balloons we see here today. The altitude will be over 140,000 feet.”
The two launches each encountered different problems.
“Unfortunately, the first balloon slipped out of the filling port, which has never happened before,” Vigiant said. “The second balloon may have been released too soon, or the line connecting the camera box to the parachute may have been connected. In hindsight, if that had actually been the weak area, we would have lost everything. Because I’m glad it happened here. Imagine something weighing 7 pounds falling from a height of 100,000 feet without a parachute. It would have been a disaster. .”
Although the day ended in failure, Vigiant said her class had a lot of fun with the project so far.
“They were really looking forward to today,” Vigiant said. “We’ll see if we can reschedule the test launch again by April. We’ll just have to see what happens. These kids aren’t used to doing things like this. They’re a team. They had to learn how to work together and that was the biggest takeaway. This was a very complex project and they learned a lot.”
Vigent and his team were clearly disappointed, but handled the error with maturity and grace.
“It was still great to see the whole school here today and participating,” Mr Vigiant said. “When you do science, even if you fail, that’s a good thing.” Thomas Edison said it best in an interview when asked why he continued to use the light bulb after failing 1,000 times. “It’s not that I’ve failed twice, it’s that I’ve found 1,000 ways it won’t work.” ”
