How Incredible Is Your Incredible: Part One of the SS Sundog Journey

As technology continues to expand, we are rewarded with affordable and sophisticated pieces of hardware that would have made any tech geek beyond excited just a few short years ago. This series of blog posts will chronicle my experience with some standard pieces of technology (by today’s standards) and how I used my imagination to push the limits of these devices to achieve a goal I dreamed about as a kid.

Growing up I liked technology, photography, outdoors and exploring. Because of this, my dad and I would often shoot off model rockets to see how high we could get them to fly. I remember when I was a kid there was a rocket with an on-board camera that would take pictures after the chute for the rocket was deployed. I never got that rocket, but I always thought it would have been so cool to see what kind of pictures it would produce.

A few years ago I read about a group of amateur hobbyists that got together and launched a weather balloon with an on-board camera that would take pictures at regular intervals during the flight. They also incorporated standalone GPS units for locating the payload after touch down. This reminded me of the rocket I wanted as a kid so I put “Launch a weather balloon” on my bucket list.

Weather Balloon 101:
What are weather balloons and how do they work? Weather balloons are launched simultaneously twice a day from nearly 900 locations throughout the world. The US alone has 92 locations in which the National Weather Services releases a balloon twice a day. These balloons are used to gather information about atmospheric conditions that can be used to create certain weather models. The balloon flights can last over two hours during which the balloon can drift up to 125 miles and rise up nearly 100,000ft into the atmosphere. As the balloon rises into the atmosphere the air pressure will continue to decrease until the balloon can no longer hold the gas it contains. The balloon will then explode which causes the payload to fall back to the earth. The payload can be subjected to temperatures as low as -140 degrees Fahrenheit and wind speeds of nearly 200mph.

A few months ago, I decided it was time to cross the weather balloon ambition off my list. First I needed to figure out the equipment I would need. I needed to track the payload, take pictures at specific intervals, record flight data. It also needed to be affordable and lightweight. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that I already had all the technical equipment I would need sitting in my pocket. It was my Android smart phone from Sundog; more specifically the HTC Droid Incredible 2. Would the Incredible 2 live up to its name and survive a flight in harsh conditions?

I looked in the Android Market to see if there were any applications out there that would already do what I needed. I knew it was a long shot, but I didn’t want to reinvent the wheel if there was already a working solution. I wasn’t surprised when I didn’t find what I needed, so I started writing the app to fit my requirements.

Read Part Two Here