Balloon Success

Two teams of Physics students from Cockermouth School have spent eight months working on a project which today saw them send cameras into the stratosphere.

Local company, React Engineering, set the teams a brief to capture video footage of the curvature of the earth and the blackness of space. The cameras recorded pictures of the curvature of the earth from a height of 33,000 metres before parachuting back to earth.

The 12 students who engineered a space device, which they launched from the school playing field at 9am on Wednesday 23 January, say they are ecstatic with the images they have received from one of the weather balloons, which landed just 2 miles from school at 2.30pm the same day -- they are awaiting the return of the second.

As well as excellent pictures, the students also have maps tracking the direction the balloon travelled, and will now put the footage together to make a short film to tell their story. The students designed and manufactured the video recording device with help from specialist engineers and professionals from west Cumbrian firm REACT.

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