From Above
 

What happens when you give me a tank of helium, a cheap digital camera, and some timing components? I do really stupid stuff.

After three days of work on some simple circuitry and design, I was able to get a digital camera in the air and taking pictures every sixteen seconds. Had the afternoon not been so breezy, we might have gotten it higher up. Still, it was a lot of fun!

http://fox.org/~vince/log/images/20040125/final.jpg
The Sub Orbital Camera Kit -- or "SOCK"

http://fox.org/~vince/log/images/20040125/16.jpg
SOCK finally takes flight after using an amazing thirteen balloons to achieve positive buoyancy. It beeps every time it takes a picture, making it a mysterious sputnik over campus.

http://fox.org/~vince/log/images/20040125/5.jpg
Higher!

http://fox.org/~vince/log/images/20040125/11.jpg
A second attach point on top and a third flight allowed us to grab some side-views. Sadly, most of them were blinded by the sun.

http://fox.org/~vince/log/images/20040125/9.jpg
The problem with cheap digitals -- bright light means dead spots.

An opto isolator,some form of timer (555 perhaps) with rc. Looks like you did a good job. Nice pics too

Yep -- a 555 timer, which turned out to be a lot more difficult than I thought, and a solid state relay. Just soldered the leads onto the shutter switch. It was not as easy as I had envisioned (timing, duty cycle adjustment, etc), and getting the thing into the air proved to be quite a trick. I'll post ground photos of the event and some of the snags we encountered in a bit.

So how do you make sure you get your camera back? Is it tethered or do you just have to chase it and hope?

We had it attached to some 50lb test monofilament line. Had the line snapped, tangled in a tree, or the link come undone I would have lost it. A chase might have ensued, and someone even suggested we bring an emergency bb gun, but we opted to just hope everything went okay. The line held very well, even in the mild wind that had an magnified effect on the setup.

http://fox.org/~vince/log/images/20040125/socks2.jpg

http://fox.org/~vince/log/images/20040125/sock.jpg

That's not stupid. It's cool. Nice job.

Have you thought about trying it with a camcorder?

Camcorder? Dear god! For this tiny camera that runs on 2 AAAs batteries, I made a poor estimate of 5-7 balloons. It ended up being neutral at ten, rising at thirteen, and did well with fifteen.

While I'd love to do a camcorder and I know where to order weather balloons from, I can't afford the helium!

what about lashing the weather balloons to an aluminum lawn chair and...

http://www.markbarry.com/lawnchairman.html

Truly, an American hero.

The infamous American Science and Surplus might make future launches a lot more interesting!

I saw that on mythbusters back in November. Thought it was neat, but definitely scary to someone who can't mount a stepladder without getting a case of the cold sweats.

This is weird. I've seen someone do something similar on a website, long ago and far away. I swear the buildings in picture 4 were the same ones.:confused:

One of those big rc zepellins might be just the thing... of course that's $

This is weird. I've seen someone do something similar on a website, long ago and far away.

Perhaps you are thinking of this article on Cockeyed?

I did a little research on this before attempting and found the article on viewing over an acre. It was helpful -- I knew after reading his stuff that I could expect to use a lot of helium.

I have no idea what he was thinking by having the cord connected, though. That's where all the weight comes from.

Oooooohhh, you too?! I built a barn that had a peak of 12', I finished it, even shingled it, but my wife had to help me down each time. I have a weathervane for the garage (not that much higher) that's been in a box for 6 years.

I've been to the top of the World Trade Center even, but anything over 10 feet freaks me out.

Oh, and oh yeah, last time I was on a ladder I fell out of a tree with a running chain saw. I have many more falling\electrical\fire stories.