New Floors

If you didn’t hear from me during the whole month of January, I can tell you that I had a good reason for being out of touch. Every weekend and every night, I spent slaving away installing new wood floors in my condo. It was an exhausting project that involved moving all of my possessions from one room to another so that I could tear up the nasty, old carpet and get down to business installing the new floor. While I was at it, I replaced all of the baseboard molding and tended to other trim projects. I think that the overall effect is really impressive! Be sure to check out a few more photos in this album.

Photo Album of new floors

New Year’s 2011!

Another year has come and gone and it only seems appropriate to take stock at this time.

I just spent the past hour or so at my piano re-learning how to play “Falling Slowly”, and it really put the past year into perspective for me. A year ago at Christmas, I struggled through the first notes of that song with my nephews back in New York, and now I find myself easily reading the sheet music after a six month hiatus from the song. What is funny is remembering how painful and challenging it was to learn it, how rewarding it was to perform it at the recital in May, and similarly, how challenging it is for me to learn Beethoven’s “Moonlight Sonata” right now. I suppose that it points out how the learning process is a never ending continuum, and that it really does take significant effort and struggle in order to achieve meaningful progress.

These New Year’s post have become somewhat of a recent tradition for me, and I think there is real value in sitting down and putting down my thoughts and goals and ambitions into words for the whole world to see. I know that I have looked back on the posts from the past two years on many occasions in order to motivate myself or bask in the glory of a job well done.

This past year has taught me even more about setting goals and working diligently to achieve them. It hard to know where to begin, but I can honestly say that weighing 15-20 lbs less than I did last year at this time is a huge accomplishment for me. Of course, the end result is wonderful but the process has been the most interesting and rewarding part of this accomplishment. As expected, I went full-force kayaking this year with 82 days on the water which bested my 70 days from last year and I stepped up to my first Class V run. The entire kayaking experience and lifestyle has really grabbed hold of me and mid-summer I made the very conscious choice that I wanted to maintain the energy and excitement of kayaking through the rest of the year in all other aspects of my life. So in July, I began to run after taking a long break since my first half marathon in 2008. Basically, I maintained my excitement and energy level by redirecting it towards running as kayaking began to wane. Ultimately, I ran my second half-marathon in November at the Highlands Ranch Backcountry (trail-run) Half-Marathon. And as a side-effect of all of this exercise in the water and on the trail, I wound up losing 15-20 lbs of unneeded weight which has almost gotten me back to my high school weight! I’m not going to go into this anymore, but I can say without a doubt that this is the best I have felt physically in over 15 years and I don’t want it to stop. As a matter of fact, I was running through an L.A. neighborhood this fall when I saw some out of shape, lazy suburbanites. Since I was running high on adrenaline from an adventurous trail run, the contrast between my current life and theirs was particularly accentuated. At that very moment, I decided that I wanted to be a person who lived life energetically and that I would be in the best possible shape I could be from now on. So here I go on this new path…

It has been almost 3 months since I wrote the first section of this post, and I finally have some concrete resolutions for the coming year, so like 2009 and 2010, I am going to put them down in writing with the expectation that it will keep me honest. After considering various goals during long, peaceful runs the past few weeks, I have categorized them into 4 groups:

1. Be deliberate

I believe that acting deliberately is not only necessary for achieving the following resolutions, but is also a basic ingredient to sustained happiness. For that reason, I have written an entire blog post dedicated to acting deliberately.

2. Fitness/Athletic

As you can tell from the beginning of this post and my post on being deliberate, I’m really jazzed up on fitness and kayaking is still holding center stage. I always say that time on the water is key to successful kayaking, so I am going to best my previous year’s record by kayaking more than 100 days in 2011. And in order to keep my frequency up throughout the year, I am going to kayak every month of the year as well. Additionally, I am teaching kayaking for the Colorado Whitewater club and for Renaissance Adventure Guides, so I’m sure that I will get a whole lot of extra days in on lakes and in pools.

As I am writing these goals, I am actually 3 weeks away from the April 17th Horsetooth Half Marathon in Fort Collins, and my training has been going exceedingly well. After I complete the half, I will go into a recovery training mode and then kick into gear training for the October 9th Rock ‘n’ Roll Marathon in Denver! I never expected that I would run a marathon in my entire life, but now I see an opportunity that I am going to grab. I don’t think it will be easy, so I plan to join a training group that will provide me a deliberate framework in which to not only finish, but do so with a smile on my face.

Generally speaking, I plan to continue this life of exercise that I’m on in order to not only stay in shape, but actually increase my fitness to a higher level than ever before. I expect that my days at the gym will wane during the summer, but with outdoor pools throughout Boulder, there is no excuse to not enjoy a lunchtime swim! Ultimately, I expect my swimming technique and fitness to increase dramatically throughout the year so that I can consider participating in triathlons in 2012.

3. Projects

Anyone who has spent time around me as an adult knows about me and my projects. I always seem to have something in the works, but as I find my time occupied by so many other worthy pursuits, I find the projects get set aside. So I think it is worthwhile to make a few realistic resolutions regarding my projects. First off, I’m mentally ready to move out of my condo into something bigger, but before I can take the plunge, I need to save for a heftier down payment and make a few final improvements on the condo in order to increase its resale value. After having installed all new windows the past two years, January 2011 was dedicated to installing new wood floors. My remaining condo projects for the year are to replace the wood fence and replace the decking on the front porch. These aren’t particularly challenging projects, but I hope that putting them down in writing will help me follow through on them as I’m drawn each weekend towards kayaking in the mountains. Apart from my condo, I actually want to limit the number of projects I work on this year. The van is an endless source of projects, so I know I will continue to sink time into it, and the only van project that needs a kick in the pants is the Arduino-based battery monitoring system that I have 50% completed. I am telling myself that only after I finish it can I install solar panels on the van!

4. Intellectual Pursuits

Lifelong learning is one of my highest overall priorities. After spending years in school, I can’t imagine a life that isn’t filled with books, computers, and most importantly, intellectual stimulation and engagement into new realms. So it is not surprising that several of my resolutions for 2011 are geared particularly towards intellectual pursuits.

Writing this very post is another reminder of how much I enjoy the simple act of writing. I initially started my blog as a simple way to capture a few notes to go with photo albums I was posting, but over the years, it has become a wonderful outlet for me in its own right. I have discovered that I don’t write so much for others to read, but just for its own sake. I have also realized that as I get busy, I stop writing. So this year I am making a resolution to write more consistently throughout the year. I have gone to great lengths to implement a system that allows my little netbook to remain synchronized with my desktop computer, so there really isn’t any excuse for me to not bring it along and capture my adventures in writing throughout the summer.

Considering that I expect to be writing more and more often, I believe that it is critical to read as much as possible in an effort to stimulate all the parts of the brain that enhance the understanding and usage of the written word. I have almost a dozen great books sitting on a shelf waiting to be read, and now I just need to make sure that I bring them along with me and spend a little time on them throughout the summer camping months.

Finally, the exhausting flooring project in January forced me to face a reality about time and effort and motivation. Rather than limping along doing a poor job, I chose to halt my piano lessons for the time being. It was a hard choice for me to make, because I understand that it is very tough to return to a pursuit like piano after stopping it. So for 2011, my piano resolution is simple- I just want to keep playing the songs that I already know. I want to continue to experience the enjoyment of playing the piano with the hope and the expectation that my enthusiasm will be renewed and then I can continue with lessons once again.

I have my work cut out for me in 2011, but I’m lucky to get another trip around the Sun and I’m fully prepared to make the most of it!

Costa Rica Kayak Adventure!

Tomorrow, I take off for a 10 day whitewater kayaking adventure through Costa Rica! The warm weather will be a welcome break from the cold winter that has begun to descend on Colorado, and it will feel great to get back in my kayak every day after a dry spell with almost no boating. Rain and flood conditions tend to dictate which rivers are navigable on any given day, so there is no set itinerary for our trip. However, I plan to check in with my SPOT GPS each day so you can follow along from your computer. I can't wait to get started!

12/3/10- 5:09am Barely got our kayaks onto the plane. "Continental Airlines will accept one pack containing a lightweight assembly kayak less than 50 lbs ". No size restrictions mentioned or any mention of hardshell vs. collapsible. We were second in line at 4am, but the agent said there was a luggage embargo for large items and that our kayaks didn't qualify as "kayak assembly". Not cool. Fortunately, I kept my cool and after 20 minutes, I was able to convince the supervisor to let the boats on the plane. Whew. Now I'm just hoping they make it to Costa Rica.

4:31pm Made it to San Jose and the Hotel Mi Tierra and sent my first SPOT update. Now I'm updating my blog from my iPhone over wifi in the hotel. Very cool use of technology! And just as importantly, our kayaks and gear all made it here successfully. Pura Vida!




12/4/10 7:00am The whole crew made it here and we are off to run the Sarapaqui and possibly a 30 foot waterfall! Bueno!


7:55pm Awesome day on the Lower Sarapaqui. Lyle was the only one to run the 30 ft waterfall, since he broke his paddle on the descent. The jungle setting and warm water were huge contrasts to my normal Colorado boating style and very cool. Exhausted.

12/5/10 8:41pm Another incredible day in the Sarapaqui. This time we did the Upper and Lower. I could really get used to boating every day down here. It doesn't get much better!

12/6/10 6:30pm Kayaked the Upper and Lower Pejibaye today. Very cool jungle setting with huge boulders and trees hanging over the river. Big 6' drop to start things out and then slow going to avoid strainers among the boulders. We all had a great time and are now staying in the beautiful Turrialtico lodge just outside of Turrialba. Tomorrow we begin an overnight on the Pacuare, so no internet but SPOT should hopefully work, and of course the kayaking and scenery will be incredible.



12/7/2010- 9am, Change of plans. It rained all night which resulted in the Pacaure swelling up to the red gauge. So rather than chance it, we are heading to the beach for a few days. Either way, it's hard to beat!

12/8/10 8:30am. Dawn patrol kayak surf session this morning at Playa Hermosa. Now off to kayak a river. Awesome!




6pm. Kayaked Upper and Lower Naranjo. Another cool run and even had a crocodile chase Lyle!
Now we are staying in Dominical beach town for a few days. The black sand beaches have amazing phosphorescent organisms that light up like stars when you kick sand in the dark- trippy!

12/9/10 6:30pm Just got out of my boat for the last time today. It's really amazing how much time I have spent in it this week! Today, we started kayaking in a tiny mountain creek that led into the clear waters of Rio Guabo that eventually led us into the Pacific Ocean. Source to sea- how incredible! Along the way, we had shelf drops, waterfalls, a poisonous snake, a crocodile, and then 6' breaking waves in the ocean. And then we surfed our way back along the beach to our hotel. After a short break, we were back in the ocean ripping up the waves in front of an amazing sunset! Finally, darkness got us out of our boats and back to the hotel for a shower and dinner. Man, what an incredible vacation!

12/10/10 6:30pm. Living the life in Costa Rica. In the ocean at 5am for 2 hours of kayak surfing as the sun rose, then kayaked the middle section of Rio General, then back in the ocean for the last hour and half of the day for more kayak surf as the sun set over the Pacific.

12/11/10 10pm. How many days can I report on another great day here in Costa Rica? Dunno, but today will be my last until my next visit :-( Today began with another dawn kayak surf session followed by banana pancakes and then kayaking the Rio Savagre. What an amazing trip!

Finally put together a photo slideshow and posted it to YouTube!

 

Tour d’Ark Follow Along

This Thursday morning, I will begin 5 days of whitewater kayaking with several friends down the Arkansas River in Colorado starting on the Granite section and ending in Canon City almost 100 miles later. The trip was dreamt up by Scott Winkleman as a perfect way to see all of the whitewater sections of the Arkansas River that we all usually kayak as day trips, but instead as one long, mulit-day, kayak-self-support adventure. We will be meeting friends along the way to share different stretches with us and hopefully provide some dinners, but we will carry all of our camping gear in our kayaks throughout the trip. It is sure to be an unforgettable journey, and you can follow along from the comfort of your living room by checking on the live updates on this map from my SPOT GPS this Thursday through Monday.
Happy July 4th!

Gates of Lodore Follow Along

On Saturday, June 19, I will embark with my friends on a 4 day whitewater trip down the Green River through the Gates of Lodore in Dinosaur National Monument! This is a wonderful trip through desert country in northwest Colorado that is sure to be a good time! As I've done in the past, I will update our remote location using my SPOT GPS messenger beacon, but I'm going to try using the real-time tracking with 10 minute location updates on this trip.  Check back here on the map Saturday through Tuesday to monitor our progress as we wind our way down through the remote desert canyons on the Green River!





Or you can check our location on the SPOT webpage.

Boulder Creek Kayak Action

Boulder Creek finally started flowing last week and I had a few really fun runs on it that were captured on camera by friends on the banks.

On Friday, I ran Lower Boulder Canyon for the first time ever at a manageable level of 300cfs. Most of the run was straightforward, but the Elephant Buttress was a bit tricky and it wound up flipping me about 3/4 of the way through the rapid. I rolled up after bouncing along some rocks and finished the run with a smile on my face!

The following day, the water started really pumping on all the rivers and creeks in Colorado as a result of the continuous warm weather, and Boulder Creek shot up to over 800cfs! I was on the Poudre River all weekend (4.5-5ft), but when I got back into town on Monday, I went out for a town run at 700cfs with a few friends. There were lots of playful waves throughout the run and we were lucky to have a friend of a friend (David) take some beautiful photographs of us in a play wave near the library. We finished up with margaritas at the Playa Azul take out which officially confirmed for me that summer has arrived!

Be sure to check out the photos in this Boulder Creek photo album.

Memorial Weekend Kayaking

What better way to kick off meteorological summer than a long weekend of kayaking? A bunch of us headed out to Glenwood Springs over Memorial weekend 2010 to catch the run off on the Roaring Fork and Colorado Rivers and we had an incredible time!


The excitement started early in the trip when the van decided to stop working 1/4 mile into Eisenhower Tunnel during one of the busiest travel days of the year! Like the Secret Service protecting the President, the tunnel crew swept into action within 30 seconds by closing the tunnel and dragging the van out with a tow strap! We were shocked by the immediate response and even happier when the van started up again after 5 minutes of rest. Whether it was vapor lock or overheating, we were happy to be on our way again.

On Saturday, we had a great high water (5000cfs) run on the Cemetary stretch of the Roaring Fork River that included some fun wave trains, and then we headed up stream towards Aspen to run the Slaughterhouse section (1000cfs) of the Roaring Fork. It was Scott's, Robert's, and my first time down the run, but it felt pretty comfortable with Mark leading the way. After that, we picked up Dede and Karen and continued down the Upper Woody stretch which was really exciting at that level.


On Sunday, we turned our attention to the Colorado River which was pumping through Glenwood Canyon at 8900cfs! Scott, Robert and I put in at Shoshone and were blown away by the big water feel of the run at that level. We then picked up Dede, Karen, and Jen and continued down through the Grizzly stretch all the way to the Glenwood wave where we got some surfing in. The girls were able to capture some video action of us going through Shoshone, but of course it doesn't really do justice to the feeling that we had in the chaotic water!



Monday started out a bit slow and we found ourselves back at the Glenwood wave for some more surf action. Once again, there was some video captured and I spliced together a fun little movie of our surf sessions.



Afterwards, we hopped back on I-70 towards Denver with a stop off to run the Upper Eagle. Robert and Mark got in a quick shot down Dowd Chutes where Scott and I joined them for an incredibly quick run down to Avon at 2500cfs. 


I have a handful of photos from the weekend in this photo album.


All in all, it was a fantastic weekend of kayaking and hanging out with friends!

Glory in the news

2010 will hopefully be the year that the NASA Glory mission launches into space. I have been working on the Glory-TIM instrument since 2004 and am extremely excited to have my own system fly in space for the first time! If I haven't told you about it before, I designed the pointing system for the TIM instrument that will allow it to look directly at the sun as the spacecraft orbits around the earth. As the November 22, 2010 launch date grows closer, Glory is beginning to receive attention in the press, so I thought I would report on some of the interesting stories out there.

 

First off, you can check out all the latest official NASA news about Glory at the main Glory website, and there is also a very nice PDF brochure about the Glory mission.

 

Now on to my entries in the Glory news! Last week, I was interviewed about the connection between Glory and the hit t.v. show Lost, and a great article was posted online. Here is an excerpt:

"What they surely don't know, regardless of how many hours they've spent scouring Lostpedia or regaling perplexed coworkers with Lost trivia, is that engineers for NASA's Glory mission have a computer and button of their own at the University of Colorado's Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (LASP) that's keeping them up at night."

Be sure to check out the full article and my video that inspired the article at the NASA What On Earth blog.

 

And finally, I have a number of videos I created about the TPS that are posted on Youtube. Here is a favorite of mine that shows a time-lapse of the TPS motion during testing at LASP.

 

That's all for now, but I will be sure to post with more information as the launch date nears...

Confluence Surf Session

You might think the South Platte River that runs through downtown Denver is dirty. And you’d be right, which is exactly why I had always avoided kayaking the whitewater drops in Confluence Park. But yesterday, the spring rains had flushed most of the junk way down river (or so I told myself), and the waves were at a perfect level for a few hours of kayak surfing in the Spring sunshine. Have a look at the video and you’ll see why I have a newfound respect Denver’s kayaking scene.

Pole Pedal Paddle

What do you get when you strap a camera to a ski pole, then to mountain bike handle bars, and then kayak one handed so you can film the river? You get my decidedly “recreational” entry in the 2010 Salida Pole Pedal Paddle race and you get a fun, first person view of the race course shown in the video below.

So what if I came in last or second to last place? When and where else can you get the opportunity to ski, mountain bike, and whitewater kayak all in the same day? And when and where can you actually link these three activities together sequentially in a really fun course? April in Salida Colorado, that’s when and where. And that’s exactly what the 3P organizers and around a hundred athletes do each year in this unique event. In case you couldn’t tell from the video, it is a fantastic time and I highly recommend it if you enjoy these sports.

In addition to filming throughout the course, I also carried a GPS in order to mark the route and get an idea of how fast/slow I went. You can get a sense of race course location and my speed in the interactive map below, or you can download the GPX or KML file to view in Google Earth.

History Balloon Photos

I would have to say that recovering the balloon package is my favorite part of launching high altitude balloons. The whole process reminds me a bit of playing neighborhood baseball as a child. Inevitably, the ball would get hit into another neighbors yard or get caught in a tree or someplace inaccessible, and then a small adventure would ensue as we went about trying to get it back. As we get older, our sense of scale and focus changes, and we find less and less wonder in our usual, immediate surroundings. But every time we launch one of these balloons, eastern Colorado suddenly becomes my childhood neighborhood as I set out to search for the camera package with my friends. And every time, it is an adventure.

We do our best to select launch sites and wind conditions that will provide a safe trajectory away from heavily populated areas and airspace. And we label the camera package with our contact information and non-hazardous markings. But even with all that, things don’t always go to plan and we end up confronted with a situation like this!

It turned out that the balloon package landed in a horse corral and the shredded balloon covered the “Non” portion of the “Non-Hazardous” marking. Within 20 minutes of landing, two nice women noticed it and called the police due to the suspicious hazardous markings. Thanks to our trusty SPOT messenger, we made it there before Johnny-Law, and as Ricky Ricardo used to say, we had some esplainin’ to do. We happily shared the purpose of the mission and the joy that we witnessed when the balloon was launched in front of dozens of elementary and middle school children. We even dismantled the package to prove to the officer that we were on the up-and-up, which was sufficient for him to continue on his way. And we finally reviewed the photos with our new friends and promised that we would follow up with an email link to the photos.

A  closer examination of the GPS log showed that the balloon reached a new personal record of 109,000 feet above sea level! Be sure to check out the GPS track file with geotagged photos and the photo album of the best photos.

A Historic High Altitude Balloon

This morning will mark the third flight of the camera/SPOT balloon package to the edge of space in 2010. The flight is another education and public outreach (EPO) opportunity that is taking place in conjunction with the Boulder History Museum. They are working with a local middle school to film and produce a short documentary about scientists in Boulder and Lars and the atmospheric scientists at LASP fit the bill. Or maybe they just wanted some cool pictures of the edge of space. Anyway, below is the map that will update automatically with the balloon’s location after its 9am MDT launch. Enjoy!

UPDATE: This launch even got a press release in the Boulder Daily Camera newspaper!

Tethered Balloon Flight

My interest in flying a tethered balloon with a camera system started back in July of 2006. Since then, I designed and built a sophisticated camera system, purchased a  7 foot diameter helium balloon, and have talked about flying it over Boulder to take aerial photographs. Almost 4 years have passed with enough yak shaving and procrastination for me to vow to finally do this on not one, but two New Year’s resolutions. I can finally and proudly say that I flew the balloon and the camera system over my South Boulder neighborhood and it was a tremendous success!

My initial interest in the subject goes way back to my Master’s Thesis that involved the design of a micro air vehicle control system for DARPA. The justification for the thesis work was that there is a strong need within the military (and other agencies) for visual knowledge of an environment that is best provided by an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV). However, UAVs can be difficult to operate, so much research has been invested in developing autonomous UAVs that can operate on their own, which is exactly how I was funded for my research project.

Flash forward to 2006. I no longer live in Boston, but I am still working in the aerospace industry. Instead of designing control systems to fly aerial vehicles, I am designing control systems to point scientific payloads on satellites in earth orbit. I pick up my first issue of Make magazine while visiting my parents and am immediately blown away by the advancements in low-cost, robotic-like electronics that are available to the average hobbyist that used to be top-shelf military grade components. I subscribe to the magazine and request all back issues, which included their premiere issue focused on kite aerial photography. I have an epiphany. Kites can fly above the earth in a relatively fixed location and orientation without any sophisticate control system, which allows people to focus on building camera payloads to take incredible photographs. I am convinced that I have short-circuited all of the work that has gone into UAV control system development. I realize that there isn’t always wind to fly a kite. Duh. I think back to my childhood and remember helium balloons. I am a kid again and having fun with a balloon. It is the answer. I am convinced that the answer is to fly a helium balloon with a camera instead of investing precious time and money on developing sophisticated autonomous UAVs. I research the market and learn that three companies visibly cater to this type of market: Southern Balloon Works, SkyDoc Balloons, and Allsopp Helikites. All of these companies do impressive work and had my epiphany long ago. But they don’t design precision pointing systems for NASA, I do. I convince myself that I can buy a balloon from one of these vendors, build a sophisticated camera payload, and point it better and for cheaper than anyone else using low-cost hobby electronics.

We are now in July 2006. I spend some of my free time furthering research on the topic, ordering a balloon from Southern Balloon Works, buying a Canons S3is camera, buying and learning to work a BasicStamp-based Parallax BoeBot, buying a camera cradle from ServoCity, and ultimately building a pretty nice semi-autonomous gimbaled camera system to fly on the balloon. Of course, there were issues or I wouldn’t be writing this in 2010. The real-time video downlink from the camera had numerous issues. I eventually worked out the kinks between the RC transmitter and the video downlink and wound up with a reliable RC/video system. I also got involved in mentoring a FIRST robotics team which was a valuable experience, but that also ate into my free time for such extracurricular nerdy activities. Ultimately, it came down to priorities and focus. There are a few things I can say with complete conviction and one is that when we make something in our life a priority or if it occupies our focus, it will be done well and it will be done quickly. So although you could say that requirements creep caused me to try to make the system too autonomous or I got caught shaving a yak, when it comes down to it, flying a helium balloon just wasn’t a priority and didn’t occupy my focus for the past two years despite the fact that I really wished it would.

Sometimes, things in life don’t go as planned and we have to accept them for what they are, decide to fight against them, or a little of both. When it came to this balloon project, I would like to think that I went with a little of both. First, I was fortuitous to become friends with Sam and Lars, who have helped me tremendously in literally getting this project off the ground. Second, I made the conscious choice to abandon the lost cause of a BasicStamp controlled “smart” camera system and to pursue a remote controlled camera system that was well within my means. What was amazing was that after making that choice, it only took three weeks to make the adjustments to the system, get my friends onboard with the project, and ultimately fly my gimbaled balloon camera system. You can probably begin to understand now why I am proud of this accomplishment.

Instead of explaining the as-built system in writing, I thought it would be easier to watch it in action. So check out the overview video below.

And now onto the premiere flight of my tethered balloon camera system.

As you can see from the video, I think the first flight of this system went very well. The as-built system functioned as I had hoped, but the balloon proved to be much less stable than I expected. In some ways, that actually makes things more fun, since it provides me with a justification to improve upon the system :-) It may not be the game changing invention that I dreamed of years ago, but I am glad that I dreamed and proud that I had the courage to try to make it come true.

Be sure to check out the photo album to get a sense of the quality of the photos. There are some fun ones in there! The photo below highlights the improved resolution that near earth aerial photography can provide compared to satellite imagery. Also, if you want to see this photo and two others in Google Earth, down the this KMZ file.

Kite Aerial Photography

What to do on a windy April day in Colorado? How about flying a kite high above an office building with a camera dangling precariously on the kite line in a poor man's attempt to take some cool photos? That's exactly what Lars and I did yesterday in my first foray into Kite Aerial Photography (KAP).

I first read about this in the premiere issue of Make Magazine several years ago. With my interest piqued about aerial photography, I began a slow quest that has led me to build a tethered balloon photography rig (still hasn't flown though) and to launch a camera to the edge of space twice so far this year. On the eve of this year, I mentioned the possibility of getting into KAP, so with the windy weather and a CHDK enabled camera, it only seemed natural to give it a go yesterday.

The winds were at least 15-20mph with gusts much higher, so it seemed likely that my kite could lift the weight of the camera. I had never attached any mass to a kite line before, so the first experiment involved wrapping the taught kite line around a carabiner and clipping a wrench to it. The wrench was easily hoisted into the air as it swayed all over the place in the gusty air. Two minutes later and the wrist tether of the camera was clipped to the carabiner and it was up in the air wildly taking photos! Unfortunately, the battery ran out and it was only programmed to take photos once per minute, so back into the lab for battery charging and reprogramming. An hour later, the camera was back up in the air taking photos once every 10 seconds! I quickly walked the line down, reviewed the photos to make sure it was all working, and back up it went on its completely unstable tether to a height at least 200 feet above the ground!

Considering how little effort (and thought) went into this little aerial photography experiment, I would say it went extremely well. We actually got quite a few nice photos, the best of which is an extremely crisp photo of our neighbor CASA with the Flatirons in the background.

Be sure to check out some more photos in the photo album.

Of course, I couldn't leave it at that, so last night I set about building a Picavet suspension to hold the camera level to the ground for the next time we have some nice windy conditions here in Boulder...

On another quick note, this trusty soldier of a camera is going to fly to the edge of space yet again this Friday as part of a documentary being produced by the Boulder History Museum. Let's hope for its safe return!

Lucky Balloon!

If you read the pre-flight article, you’d remember that I ended by saying, “Let's hope for the Luck o' the Irish for the ole' balloon!” As it turned out, this balloon flight definitely needed the luck of the Irish. After a perfect launch into a blue-bird Colorado sky, we casually began to follow the SPOT location updates from the balloon towards the expected southeast landing location. Things were going great, almost too great. We followed it to Kiowa, CO and surmised that it must have been descending based on the time aloft and SPOT update cadence after its high altitude blackout. An impromptu picnic ensued on a prairie hillside while we waited for another SPOT update, but it never came. After half an hour, we decided to continue driving and search for it roadside, but that only got us as far as the Sproch Cemetary for another wait and rest session. But there would be no more updates from the SPOT. It was a beautiful day and we were enjoying ourselves, but it was difficult to accept that the balloon was lost and we might never know why it fell off the radar. After verifying with SPOT tech support that there servers were still functioning, we did another slow road side search while driving back to the last known location. A local rancher allowed us on his land and we fanned out looking for a needle in a haystack, or in this case, a camera in a hayfield. It was amazing how many small objects appeared to be the balloon, its parachute, or the styrofoam package. And there was always one more hill just over yonder that might have hidden our treasure. It was like wandering the desert and coming upon mirage after mirage. We probably walked about half a mile before realizing the absurdity of our search and heading home.
Several days came and went along with spring snow which I realized would have ruined the poor camera as it sat out in the elements. What a sad fate for the tough little Canon SD800. Two trips to the edge of space and then a snowy demise.
Even then, we all held hope that some day several months in the future, a farmer would stumble upon it, give us a call, and we would at least be able to recover the photos on the SD card. What I didn’t expect is that I would get that call on Monday, only five days after losing the package! Our luck had certainly changed for the better, and I immediately drove down to Castle Rock to retrieve the camera package!
It turns out that the package landed less than a mile from the last SPOT update and that if we had kept searching in the same direction, we would have probably found it within 30 minutes! On Thursday evening (the day after the flight), a local rancher was out gathering her cows when she came upon it. She brought it inside that night where it sat warm and dry for the next several days as the wet snow blanketed the fields outside, and then she contacted us on Monday. I couldn’t have been more excited when I got the call about it! I literally jumped up and down in my office and hooted and hollered. I exclaimed that it was better than winning the lottery! It didn’t take long to reach Castle Rock where I offered my sincerest thanks to the rancher for her kindness and honesty in getting the package back to me.
Once again, the photos from the edge of space were absolutely beautiful with expansive views of the snow capped Rocky Mountains and an amazing overflight of Denver. This payload included more sophisticated instrumentation including a dedicated GPS data logger and a separate Arduino-based logger of GPS information, heading angle, pressure, and ambient temperature. As expected, the EM406 GPS on the Arduino did not function at high altitudes, but the Sparkfun GPS logger kept on working and recorded a new altitude record for us of 106,000 feet above sea level!
Of course, we have lots of terrific photos in this Lucky Balloon photo album and an accompanying KMZ file to view the entire flight with geotagged photos in Google Earth.
But the question still remained, why did the SPOT stop sending us position updates? Well, when we opened the package, its LEDs were still blinking in the correct mode, so we know that it was still powered on. We also know that the reentry speed was much higher than the first flight and a hard landing could have possibly caused a glitch. But most importantly (in my opinion), we know that it landed on its side in an open field with a clear view of the sky, and we know that SPOT recommends that it be operated with its antenna facing up and with at least 12 inches separation from any other GPS receivers. So it’s my belief that the combination of radio interference with the other electronics and the poor viewing angle to the sky caused us to sweat it out for five days until our guardian angel delivered the camera back to us. Hopefully, we learned our lesson and won’t need to rely on luck next time!

St Patrick's Day Balloon Launch

That's right, the balloon team is back at it again! This time, we are launching a balloon as part of an Education and Public Outreach (EPO) effort at LASP in conjunction with Arvada High School. The expected launch time is 9:30am MDT.

The payload has a few extra goodies this time based on the open-source Arduino microcontroller platform that should simplify data logging of GPS location, heading, pressure, and temperature. We will still be taking photos once per minute and tracking the real-time location using the SPOT satellite messenger.

I will be attempting to provide some real-time video streaming of the launch, chase, and recovery from my iPhone using a free service from USTREAM. Check out the embedded video below, or if you want to view it in a separate browser window go to this address.

Streaming Video by Ustream.TV

Once again, check the map below for the balloon's location that will be updated every 10 minutes, or you can view the progress at the SPOT Shared Page or at the SPOT Trip Manager page.

Let's hope for the Luck o' the Irish for the ole' balloon!

Edge of Space Follow-Up

The expanded analysis of the January 5 balloon flight to the edge of space is finally available! If you aren't a geek, you will be probably be satisfied with the YouTube documentary and photo albums that are presented below. But if you have been asking questions like, "How high did it go?", or "How come the camera didn't get too cold and stop working?", then you should keep reading after the fun multimedia shows.

 

If you enjoyed the movie and want to browse through the photos at your own pace, be sure to check out this annotated photo album.

 

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Now it's time to get down to geek business...

The number one question I have been asked has been, "How high did the balloon go?" In order to answer this question, we flew my Garmin Vista Cx that logged GPS location every 5 seconds and also logged barometric pressure/altitude. I configured the GPS to use the pressure in the altitude calculation, since I had heard rumors of consumer GPS not working at high altitudes. However, upon recovery we were disappointed to discover that the barometric pressure saturated at 300 mBar (30k feet) and the cadence was very slow (~15 mins/sample).

 

The saturated pressure resulted in a GPS profile that maxxed out at 30,000 feet. However, the rise rate up to that elevation and the descent rate had great fidelity, so there was hope at estimating the maximum altitude. Finally, the photos were taken at regular 1-minute intervals, and the images showed clearly when the balloon popped, since they began to tumble irregularly. So with a little engineering detective work, I was able to estimate the maximum altitude at 93,687 feet as seen in the plot below!

 

Another interesting lesson we learned regarding altitude was that the SPOT does not provide altitude in its location reports. Because of that, when we received updates near the predicting landing site at Limon, we assumed that it was on its way down. We spent several minutes looking up in the sky, only to learn much later that it was at its apex at that time!

 

Garmin MapSource software was used to determine the speed of the balloon throughout its trajectory based on the time-tagged GPS locations. The plot below shows that the speed was at its maximum when it was traveling in the jet stream. However, the maximum speed was not properly reflected, since the vertical component during free-fall was not part of the GPS data.

 

The other question that has been asked frequently has been, “How did the camera not freeze in the cold upper atmosphere?” First off, we packaged it in a styrofoam container that helped to maintain a warm environment, and secondly, Lars built a resistive heater using two 9volt batteries. But still, we didn’t know how things would turn out. However, Sam discovered that in CHDK, he could log temperatures in the camera, so that if it did stop working during the flight, we would know what conditions caused the problem. He was able to configure the SD800 to log the temperature of its optics, the CCD sensor, and the battery, as well as the battery voltage every minute when the photos were programmed to be taken. Additionally, he created a low-power mode (3.7volts) that would take photos less frequently. As previously said, the camera was still operating when we recovered it which was a testament to his programming and the camera itself! The plot below shows that the coldest portion of the camera was the optics housing, which wasn’t surprising, since it was exposed to the outside environment. We were pleasantly surprised to see that camera stayed relatively warm throughout the flight and that a heater may not even be needed if we need to save weight in the future. You can check out a plot of the temperature versus altitude here and try to explain to yourself the reason for the temperature at the apex of the flight.

All of this data is really fun, but questions kept coming up when looking at the photos. People would ask, “How high was it in this photo?”, or “How fast was it traveling in this photo?” Since I had the times of all the photos and time tagged data, I was able to correlate the two and ultimately insert the data into the description field of the IPTC header for each of the photos in this album.

 

Finally, with the newly predicted altitude, I was able to modify the GPX files and incorporate the predicted profile into Google Earth. That profile was then used with RoboGeo to geotag the annotated photos to create an interactive experience in Google Earth that provides a comparison between the predicted path, the measured path, the extrapolated path, and the SPOT update locations. And to top it off, satellite cloud imagery was overlaid in order to show correlations between the camera photos and the satellite photos! (SpaceBalloon140.jpg, 215, 225, 232 shows the blob cloud with the same perspective as the weather satellite photo overlay.)  You can get the KMZ file here.

 

Or if you don’t want to view the photos in Google Earth, you can always check out this Google map in Picasa with geotagged photos instead.

You would think I was done with this data-rich, multi-media interpretation of the balloon launch, but I also decided to publish a Blurb book with the best photos from the album. After all, this website is all about digital stories, right? Click on the link below to preview or order the book.

To the Edge of...

By Patrick Brown

Book Preview

 

I hope you’ve enjoyed this experience. I know I have and I look forward to more balloon launches in the future!

 

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Photo Album

Blurb Book

Youtube Documentary Video

Google Earth Track with Photos (KMZ file)

Mission Accomplished!

The balloon launched successfully at 9:36am and was recovered in perfect condition 154 miles southeast of the launch site at 1:55pm! The camera was still taking photos at one minute intervals over 4 hours after the intervelometer was started, and it grabbed this great photo of all of us checking out our baby!

I haven't begun to process all of the photos, GPS data, sensor data, and video files, but here is a slide show of all the photos that the camera captured.



Every aspect of the mission went perfectly to plan except that the balloon traveled significantly farther than expected. Check out this Google Earth image to see the discrepency. One theory is that the parachute was oversized which resulted in a slow descent and and correspondingly long lateral drift. According to the GPS, the balloon was moving for 3 hours and 42 minutes at an average speed of 41.5 miles per hour and maximum speed of 95.4 mph! If you want to take a closer look at the GPS data, you can view the comparison in Google Earth by opening this KMZ file.

Stay tuned for a video documentary, photos from the ground, and geotagged photos in Google Earth!

Going UP Tomorrow!

UPDATE! 9:36am- Up, up, and away!

Tomorrow morning at approximately 8am MST, a weather balloon with my modified Canon SD800is, my SPOT GPS transmitter, and my Garmin Vista Cx will voyage to the edge of space!

The idea belonged to my colleagues Sam and Lars, and was soon added to my list of resolutions. After realizing that it was a reasonably easy goal to accomplish, we set about gathering all the parts and preparing to launch the camera to 100,000 feet above the Earth. For comparison, jet airliners fly at 35k feet and at 100k feet the curvature of the Earth and the darkness of space become apparent. Our goal is to photograph this breathtaking sight and return our payload safely to earth using off-the-shelf components that we already have. The camera was modified using the Canon Hack Development Kit (CDHK) to take photos at regular time intervals. The GPS will record the 3D path of the balloon as it ascends through the atmosphere, into the fast moving jet stream, and finally above 99% of the atmosphere where it will expand to a point that its latex surface will rupture. The payload will rapidly descend through the upper atmosphere until the air density increases to the point that the attached parachute slows the descent to a safe speed to its landing location about 100 miles downwind from the launch site. And all the while, the SPOT will be relaying the position of the balloon to us in real-time!

So if you are interested in following along, just take a look at the map below and be sure to refresh every it 10 minutes or so. I can't guarantee the exact launch time, so keep checking our progress throughout the morning.

One Year Later…

It was one year ago that I committed myself to several New Year’s resolutions and held myself accountable by making them known to my friends and family. I’m happy to report that I accomplished all but one of these ambitious goals and had a great time doing so.

I dove right in learning to play piano, mentoring the high school robotics kids, and transplanting my engine. By early March, the robotics build was over, the engine transplant was complete, and I had rudimentary piano skills.

By late summer, I had solidified my kayak roll, kayaked The Numbers, survived a week with EJ on the Ottawa River, spent a week with the family in Cape May, and returned safely across the country in my van.

After a summer-long hiatus from the piano, I returned to lessons with the intent to play Coldplay’s Lovers In Japan, but based on my teacher’s recommendations, settled for Lost! instead. Having never been through music lessons as a child, I never knew the fear associated with a piano recital, and it didn’t take me long to freeze up in front of a bunch of parents and little kids while playing the Beatles’ Ob-La-Di at my first recital and vow to play much better at my next recital. Three weeks of learning and practicing Lost! paid off at the Christmas recital when I played smoothly through the song despite my paralyzing fear. As proof that I actually learned to play the piano, I recorded myself earlier today!

The only resolution that I didn’t make good on was taking a photograph from a tethered helium balloon, but recent events should make that possible in the next few weeks. Next week, some friends of mine and I are planning to launch one of my cameras to the edge of space in a helium-filled weather balloon where it will hopefully capture the curvature of the earth and the darkness of space. Afterwards, that camera will then provide me the main tool to take pictures using Kite Aerial Photography techniques which I hope will provide another tool in my toolbox on my adventures. And finally, I expect that my friends will be able to assist me in flying my gimbaled camera on my tethered helium balloon.

I suppose you are wondering if I will follow up with more resolutions after last year’s successes. I have thought about new things to accomplish, but the only unique idea I have had is to learn to wrestle alligators! So instead of doing silly things just for the sake of doing something new, I’m going to keep working on these existing goals. I have been having a great time learning piano, so I plan to continue lessons and learning new songs in the year to come. My van is working great and I expect that I will continue to restore it to better-than-new condition. Last September, I got certified as an American Canoe Association (governing board of kayaking) instructor, so next year I will be sharing my knowledge and passion for kayaking as I instruct others through the Colorado Whitewater association. And lastly, I will take a photo from my helium filled balloon!

Happy New Year!

-Pat