Balloon

While creating robotic grippers to pick up objects that are all the same shape and consistency is relatively easy, difficulties arise when trying to create one versatile enough to handle a wider variety of objects. The flexibility of the human hand has led many robotics researchers to borrow the familiar four finger and opposable thumb template that has served us so well, but getting the robotic hand to exert enough force to grip a variety of objects without breaking the more fragile ones is still a difficult task. For this reason a team of researchers has bypassed the traditional human hand and fingers design to create a versatile gripper using everyday coffee grounds and a latex party balloon.  Read More

It’s an inspiring story that reminds you how the wonders of scientific exploration aren’t just limited to research institutions with big budgets... in August of this year, Luke Geissbuhler and his seven year-old son Max attached an HD video camera to a weather balloon and set it loose. They proceeded to obtain footage of the blackness of outer space, 19 miles (30 km) above the surface of the earth. Needless to say, there was a little more to it than just tying a piece of string around a camcorder.  Read More

Later this year, Felix Baumgartner will put on a pressurized space suit and helmet, climb into a capsule suspended beneath a balloon, ride 120,000 feet into the earth’s upper atmosphere, then jump out and – before deploying his parachute – try to break the speed of sound while in freefall. That’s the plan, at least, for the insanely-dangerous Red Bull Stratos event. If successful, it will constitute the world’s highest manned balloon flight, highest parachute jump, and fastest and longest freefall. The team conducted three important tests in the last week of May, that they just released the details of this week. What those tests entailed would probably be hair-raising enough to last most of us a lifetime.  Read More

Preparations are underway for a 150 mile journey from southern France to Corsica in a sail balloon. High flyer Stéphane Rousson is planning to pilot Zeppy 3 across a stretch of Mediterranean waters using only the power of the wind and a curved carbon foil based on the chien de mer by Didier Costes. Gizmag took the opportunity to have a closer look at the new balloon at the recent Paris Green Air Show.  Read More

Where was this product when I was growing up? Aqua Antics’ Water Bomb Factory is a child’s dream come true. Just watching the video (below) conjures up (slightly evil) thoughts of saturating family, friends and foe. Overton’s – basically a watersport enthusiast’s supermarket – says the Water Bomb Factory lets children (of all ages) tie up to ten balloons a minute, which could arm kids with a sizable stockpile in no time at all.  Read More

After receiving an email from a Japanese enthusiast, a group of amateur radio high altitude balloon buffs jumped at the chance to help record the first ever non-professional near space high definition video, and maybe set a new altitude record on the way. After squeezing the HD camcorder and tracking hardware into a styrofoam box, and a couple of false starts, the 1500g high altitude, hydrogen-filled balloon was away.  Read More

Attaching a camera to a helium-filled balloon, a group of students from MIT recently managed to get some pretty decent photographs of our beautiful planet from an estimated 93000 feet up. Nothing remarkable there you might say - high altitude balloon photography has been around a long, long time - until you consider the cost of the experiment: about USD$150.  Read More