USING A HABDUINO FOR TELEMETRY IN ARCTIC ATMOSPHERES AS A HANDS-ON SPACE EDUCATION PROJECT FOR SECONDARY SCHOOL STUDENTS

Abstract

The HABduino project is an open source shield for the Arduino Uno. The main purpose of the HABduino is to send the position and altitude of a high-altitude balloon with radio telemetry. Although the HABduino was not developed to send custom data, students from secondary school Stedelijke Humaniora Dilsen managed to adjust the code so it could send their own data from a high-altitude balloon flown above the Norwegian archipelago Svalbard. The main scientific purpose of the project was to determine the altitude of the tropopause in an arctic atmosphere. A temperature sensor and a humidity sensor were used to achieve this goal. The measurements were sent to the HABduino via serial communication before sending them to the receiver. Two balloons were used to reduce errors.