Balloonsat+High+Altitude+Flight+BHALF+Competition

In the Balloonsat High Altitude Flight (BHALF) competition for high school teams, students perform research on sensors and electrical circuit calculations to outfit a payload for a high altitude balloon launch. Students submit their research proposals. The top eight teams win $1000 grants to build their payloads, consulting with NASA scietists. The top four teams win a team to Glenn Research Center to launch their payloads. The four runners up teams win have their payloads launched as well, and will have an online day of NASA communications related to their projects. Johnson Space Center is a BHALF partner.

It might be possible to use actual student data from the BHALF competition or from weather balloons to create a related simulator. [|http://www.grc.nasa.gov/WWW/balloonsat]

In a related Teaching From Space eClips activity, Balloon Aerodynamics Challenge, students learn about balloon aerodynamics, density, and buoyancy as they manipulate payloads under helium-filled balloons. This link should be available under grades 6-8 of the NASA eClips Educator Guides when it is published. []