MLMC’s STEM Club students, who meet once a week at lunchtime, have been busy developing coding skills and preparing for our High Altitude Balloon (HAB) launch at the end of this term.
The inaugural HAB launch was in 2019. Once again the team of students involved in the HAB Project, under the leadership of teacher Mr John Parlas and supported by the Catholic Education Office, plan to collect data from the atmosphere with a variety of sensors in our payload.
We plan to analyse our findings from this year’s mission and use the primary data learn to more about the sky and near space that form the troposphere and stratosphere above.
The STEM Club students (pictured in the gallery below) have been learning how to use Python to code in Term 1 under the guidance of teacher Mr Hans Dharma and they are now transferring these skills to code our data collecting sensors for the HAB.
With all three of our Year 12 STEM Prefects (from Science, Mathematics and Technology) involved in the HAB Project, and the commitment from our enthusiastic younger STEM Club students, this project is once again proving to be a valuable cross-curricular learning experience for all involved.
Here are some reflections from our STEM Prefects:
As senior students, we are able to work with the STEM Club to prepare for the launch of the High Altitude Balloon. So far we have plotted the path of the balloon, made a prototype of the box, tested the tracking systems, and we are beginning to program the various sensors that will be used in the balloon. When all of this is prepared we should be able to have a successful launch.
— Connor Taylor (Science Prefect)
On the day of the launch, we will be able to successfully track down the balloon, collect data from the launch and retrieve the video footage of the whole flight. The planning we are doing now ensures that there are little margins for error and allows us to experiment with what works best.
— Hardy Nagel (Mathematics Prefect)
It is inspiring to see young students begin to code with such enthusiasm and take an interest in STEM and specifically the real-life application of Technology. It will be great to see these young students pursue a pathway in Technology in the future due to their experience in the HAB Project.
— Alec Grebe (Technology Prefect)
