fyi [Balloon info] Fwd: Hackerspaces In Space Update! 06/21

[John Pritchard]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Kevin Roof <ke...@workshop88.com>
Date: Mon, Jun 21, 2010 at 4:45 PM
Subject: Hackerspaces In Space Update! 06/21
To:

Hello all!  Hopefully most of you are gearing up to launch in the next couple months if you haven't already (August 31st deadline).  If you've had anything like the weather we've been getting in the Chicago area, you're probably waiting for calmer skies.  So while we're waiting for things to clear up here, we decided to send out an update to remind you guys we're still here, and we're really excited to start getting your submissions from the competition.

First, I'd like to address a question that's been coming up a lot.  "When can a Judge come view our Launch? Who do we get to judge our launch?  etc.. etc.."  The rules involving the judges have been confusing a lot of teams.  The idea is, that each team, picks an impartial judge outside of their team, to judge their OWN launch.  The judge is responsible for making sure your team is following all the guidelines we laid out, and then submit the results from your launch to us/me (ke...@workshop88.com and/or j...@workshop88.com).  Your team is responsible for picking a judge, educating the judge on the rules, and making sure that judge is available for your launch.  We're leaving a lot up to the honor system here, but we're hoping everyone participating agrees with us, that winning is no fun if you cheat.  And considering there's nothing at stake besides bragging rights, there's really not much motivation for a team to falsify results.

Second, we've gotten some pointers from a pro we'd like to share with you all.  Bill Brown @ http://www.wb8elk.com/, suggested we use his flight path predictor which you can find here: http://nearspaceventures.com/w3Baltrak/readyget.pl  It's designed to give you a more accurate flight path prediction, and the page includes an ascent rate calculator.  His prediction for Makers 256 Local was within 2 miles of their actual landing site!

And third, we'd like if everyone participating in the competition begin to send us photos and personal accounts of their experiences, starting with the build process and up to and including launch and retrieval of the balloon, hopefully soon we'll have a section on the site where we can display these.  We'll be happy with whatever you can send us, please include your team name along with the information submitted to me (ke...@workshop88.com).

Thanks again to all the teams who are participating!

Good luck,

Kevin E Roof
HSIS - Teams Organizer

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