HiTech Library Students Launch Weather Balloon in Columbia

Students in the Howard County Library’s HiTech program launched a weather balloon into the atmosphere on Wednesday behind the East Columbia Library in Owen Brown.

The 30 students who participated in the program worked in two different sessions to equip two balloons with circuit boards to collect altitude weather data, a GPS device for tracking and a camera to capture footage of the flight.

“Basically we taught [students] about why people launch weather balloons,” said Peter Hyung, a HiTech instructor. He said the students learned about the equipment needed to launch and recover balloons (GPS) and how to record data like altitude, temperature and wind speed.

A test balloon was launched on August 7, which reached an altitude of 30,000 feet and was last tracked over Delaware, according to Bryan Johnson, a HiTech instructor.

Johnson said it got caught up in Laurel, Delaware in a forest next to a landfill. The plan is to make a road trip this week to recover the balloon, according to Johnson.

As for the balloon they launched today, Johnson said the wind was again blowing toward Delaware. He said it might end up near where the other one is. But with wind speeds estimated at 112 mph at 30,000 feet, the height the balloon travels, Johnson said, “Hopefully it doesn’t end up in the ocean.”

Students who participated in the class said they enjoyed it and learned something new.

“We bought the Arduino [circuit] board and then wired it with humidity and temperature sensors,” said Dan Zou, 14, a freshman at Glenelg High School.

“We didn’t really build [the large weather balloon], we inflated it, but it was fun building mini-weather balloons with Arduinos,” said Akaash Beher, 13, an eighth grader at Elkridge Landing.

Anyone who finds the recently launched balloon (it’s at the whims of the weather) is asked to call 410-313-7797 or email hi.tech@hclibrary.org to receive instructions on how to return it. 

So far this year the HiTech program, which is open to kids ages 11 to 18, has included classes that teach students how to build videogames, understand JavaScript, engineering basics and robotics. HiTech summer classes ended this week, but more are scheduled for October, according to the library. 

Correction: Earlier this article stated the balloon was launched in Oakland Mills, in fact it was behind the East Columbia Library in Owen Brown. The article has been corrected, we regret the error.