Weather Balloon

I would like to request to run a weather balloon project during the Spring of 2018. I plan to partner with Mr. Hayes (parent) who has experience doing this project. He will help coordinate the technology while my focus will be on working with the students. The project would be open to all students in grades 6-­8.  Students will complete an application demonstrating their enthusiasm and time commitment to the project. 10 students plus three student leaders will be accepted to join the project. Students looking for and ready for a challenge in STEM would be the best fit for this project. My goal is to meet with the student leaders 3 days for 1 hour each before the group meets to develop their leadership and help coordinate from behind the scenes. The leaders will also be responsible for making material choices given the $400 budget. This is true of constraints put on engineers and scientists in the real world. The entire team (three leaders plus 10 other students) will meet for 5, one hour sessions before the actual balloon launch. I would like to develop mini teams with the students. A larger team of engineers and a smaller team of students who are more interested in language arts. This smaller team will focus on PR (writing newspaper articles, etc…) while the larger team will focus on the payload logistics. The entire team will meet for one week (Monday through Friday) for one hour after school. Meeting consecutive days will keep student motivation high, similar to an engineering sprint. The most amazing part of launching a weather balloon is doing something that feels impossible to students. The group will meet on a weather permitting Saturday or Sunday near the end of May to launch the balloon and track its journey. This is an 8-­10 hour commitment. Students and their parents (or arranged carpool) will meet at the launch site.