SSOL has demo, will travel

Matt Clausman explains to Fellows students how LABET works. Joe Beierschmitt is behind the balloon.

Five students from Iowa State University's Spacecraft Systems and Operations Laboratory (SSOL) recently visited Fellows Elementary School in Ames to give demonstrations for the school's annual Science Night. To the accompaniment of many questions from the young participants, the ISU students showed how the SSOL's Low Altitude Balloon Experiments in Technology (LABET) work. The balloon program in the SSOL is a mechanism to encourage interest in space education in conjunction with NASA research.

The five ISU students were Matt Clausman and Joe Beierschmitt, electrical engineering majors; Greg Leavitt, a graduate student in systems engineering; Ann Nelson, a biological/pre-medical illustration major; and Jessica Wallace, an elementary education major. At the Fellows Science Night, local groups are invited to give students demonstrations related to science and technology.

"The kids were pretty enthusiastic," said Matthew Nelson, SSOL chief operations engineer, who arranged the demonstration with Rob Wallace, the coordinator of Science Night and a teacher at Fellows, as well as an ISU associate professor in the Department of Ecology, Evolution and Organismal Biology. "Before we could say anything, they were asking us to explain what things were and how they worked."

The SSOL students explained the workings of LABET, which in some ways is a scaled down version of the much larger balloon used for HABET (High Altitude Balloon Experiments in Technology). By using propellers, the operator can adjust the altitude of the LABET balloon, which is similar to a blimp, and move it forward and back.

Greg Leavitt tells students about HABET and shows them some photos taken from a HABET flight, while Ann Nelson (left) looks on.

Although the HABET balloon was too large to bring to Science Night, the SSOL students did bring its payload box and some photos that were taken during a HABET flight. The cameras in the payload box were turned on so that the Fellows students could see themselves on TV monitors in the room.

Another demonstration was on yaw control, a one-axis stability platform that can be used in HABET or even satellite flights. It does this by using a spinning disc to alter the momentum of the platform. The Fellows students also saw a Tesla coil--a high-frequency air-core transformer that creates extremely powerful electrical fields--produce enough energy to illuminate parts of a fluorescent bulb.

"This was a great way for the Fellows kids to see real-world science in the classroom," said Nelson. "Although this is the first time the SSOL has traveled to a school to do a demonstration, we often give demonstrations for schools in our lab. But this was such a great experience for everyone involved that we plan on returning next year."

The SSOL is funded in part by the Iowa Space Grant Consortium, a NASA-supported organization that promotes aerospace education and research. Academic members are Drake University, Iowa State University, the University of Iowa and the University of Northern Iowa.

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