Starbase 2018

Today marked the end of Lily Grace's first official week out of school.   What better way to kick summer off than Starbase Camp? (STEM- science, technology, engineering and math camp). This year Gracie got into the Advanced Camp. 

The highlights of this years camp included, learning to use Raspberry Pi to code and program a camera to be used in the launch of a weather balloon, meeting a college student who built R2D2 using circuits, a few experiments with liquid nitrogen and getting to see how weather satellites are made. 

Starbase is such a remarkable opportunity and we are most thankful that Gracie got to be a part of it.

Working on programming and coding their team's Raspberry Pi to take pictures of the weather balloon as it traveled through the atmosphere, popped and then landed.  

Inflating the balloon before release

Each of the 8 teams had a camera attached.  Gracie's team was one of 3 teams to capture photos and video.  The balloon reached an altitude of 95,952.2 ft.  It traveled for 3 hrs 38 min before popping and landing in Ohio.  

Experimenting with liquid nitrogen

This young lady is a college student who built this R2D2 which can also function much like the one in the movie. Lily Grace loved meeting her, seeing R2 and hearing all about how she did it.

Graduation Day!  Her call sign this year was, "Bacon!"  Each graduate was also given their very own Raspberry Pi to keep.  Gracie was super excited and rushed right home to get it set up so she can start coding and programming among other fun things.  

STARBASE Indiana is a premier educational program, sponsored by the Department of Defense. At STARBASE Indiana students participate in challenging "hands-on, minds-on" activities in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM). Students interact with STEM professionals to explore careers and observe STEM applications in the real world. The program encourages students to set goals and achieve them.

http://www.starbasein.org/index.html