Alabama?s Green part of University?s Near-Space Project
5/14/2007 12:00:00 AM | Volleyball
By Scott Latta
UA Media Relations
TUSCALOOSA ?? When the High Altitude Student Platform lifts off from Fort Sumner, N.M. in early September into the upper atmosphere of earth, the work of one of the representatives of the University of Alabama athletic department will be on board.
Alabama senior volleyball player Rachael Green is a team leader for the Alabama Student High Altitude Power Experiment project, drawing schematics and calculations as a part of a team from the university that is working with students from other universities around the nation to run various tests in the upper regions of earth.
As part of the HASP project, Green is a part of a team that will be running tests primarily on battery power in the volatile atmosphere of space, discharging and charging super capacitor battery power at high altitudes and monitoring temperature changes.
The project is led by a group from Louisiana State University.
“For me it’s a great learning experience,” Green said. “Just playing sports, I haven’t had the chance to go out and get involved in hands-on projects. I’ve had formulas and design in the classroom in books but I haven’t had time in the labs to get hands-on experience which makes it all worthwhile. It’s the fun stuff.”
The project currently being worked on at the Capstone, SHAPE, is just one of many payloads to be loaded onto HASP when it launches in just under four months. The payloads, which are not launched by rocket power but lifted into earth’s atmosphere by balloon, will reach upwards of 120,000 feet and will stay above earth for up to 21 hours.
Calculations will be monitored and live feedback will be fed back to the students via an on-board camera.
Green, an electrical engineering major, is a team leader on the SHAPE project and is responsible for doling out tasks to other students, as well as securing funding for the project. She is also on the project’s “Power Team,” drawing schematics and making calculations for on-board instruments.
The experience of learning first-hand about near-space calculations instead of simply reading about it in a textbook, Green said, has been invaluable.
“To be asked to work with these projects will help me out a lot so when I talk to any companies when I’m interviewing,” she said. “They say that my r??sum?? looks great but I don’t have any experience, so this gives me the exposure to the options that are out there.”
SHAPE is just one project currently being worked on by the students. Last week, the students launched BAMASAT ?? 5, a “balloonsat” that took off from the university’s Quad at 6 a.m. and reached 84,500 feet above earth.
The balloon, which crash landed by parachute and was later recovered in Havana, Ala. in the Talladega National Forest, measured temperature, pressure and acceleration via instruments tied to the bottom.
BAMASAT ?? 5 was the second balloonsat launched by the class this semester, said faculty advisor Dr. John Baker, with more flights to come in the future as the process becomes more comfortable.
“I think if you actually build something you know how it works and things that can go wrong, and obviously theories are important but sometimes analysis and theories go wrong don’t predict everything,” Dr. Baker said. “Doing this, students get an appreciation for working in teams and having them work together, that’s what we’re told to do constantly and I think it’s a great experience for them.”
Green, who looks to graduate in December, said that the benefits of months of hard work come in knowing their project is not only a testament to the hours the students have put in the lab, but that the results are beneficial to future opportunities in the electrical engineering industry.
She finished her career with the Tide volleyball program last fall, helping lead UA to the first two NCAA Tournament berths in school history.
“This is rewarding, it looks great and it looks good when I’m talking to someone at NASA,” she said. “It gives me a lead in the long run and a chance to get a better foot in the door when it comes to getting a job.”
