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MIT Students Take Pictures from 93,000 ft on $150 Budget.

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Re: MIT Students Take Pictures from 93,000 ft on $150 Budget.

#21

Post by kreneskyp »

cesare wrote: post #15
jmtame wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i think the cost is the surprising factor about this story. taken from the site you posted: Q:How much did it cost? A:The system that is presented is a little over-engineered for historical reasons as well as for future expansion and test purposes. It's possible to build a system for $500 with just a cellphone link and a microcontroller, but make sure that coverage is good where you intend to launch and use a good ce…

True. But consider also that this has been made two years ago, with 2007 technology. Edit: Take the camera for instance. The MIT students used a Canon PowerShot A470 (they bought it used from ebay) which costs $120 new and is 7 mega pixels. This guy used a similar camera (Canon PowerShot A70) which was only 3.1 mega pixels and costed $350 when it came out.

Oregon State University launched a balloon to commemorate 100 million downloads of Firefox. They used a disposable camera with a simple timer wired to it. They didn't include a GPS unit though because it was "too expensive", the camera has yet to be found. The cannon would take better pictures, just pointing out that its not the cheapest route.

http://lug.oregonstate.edu/events/firefox/sky

Re: MIT Students Take Pictures from 93,000 ft on $150 Budget.

#23

Post by eob »

cesare wrote: post #20
eob wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who went to a state school for undergrad, worked for a few years, and is currently at MIT for a PhD: Yes. MIT is a magical place like none other. It's hard to put it more concisely.. The whole school just has an aura of "what the hell, let's try it" and a the professors and financial backing to make it happen.

It seem that financial backing wasn't needed for this project. Isn't the cheap cost the surprising factor here?

Sure. I was making a statement about MIT, not this project.

Re: MIT Students Take Pictures from 93,000 ft on $150 Budget.

#25

Post by johnnybgoode »

Over at Slashdot, there are some interesting comments pointing out that this has been done for over 30 years.

http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1367009&cid=...

http://hardware.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1367009&cid...

One amusing quote, whether you agree or disagree:

The reason why no one has heard of this before is because no one thinks it's interesting enough to tell the press about; except MIT students, who apparently think that everything they do is hot shit.

Re: MIT Students Take Pictures from 93,000 ft on $150 Budget.

#26

Post by charltones »

cesare wrote: post #10

They aren't the first to do something like this. Here's a very similar project made in 2007: http://www.natrium42.com/halo/flight2/

Also a Cambridge, UK project started 2006: http://www.srcf.ucam.org/~cuspaceflight/nova.php

As well as taking photos, they've taken passengers: http://www.srcf.ucam.org/~cuspaceflight/images/nova9selected...

Re: MIT Students Take Pictures from 93,000 ft on $150 Budget.

#28

Post by caa09hh »

gcheong wrote: post #13
caa09hh wrote: post #2

These are the kinds of things that make me want to attend MIT. You can easily market these things if you made them user-friendly. Maybe even put a steering mechanism on them?

Why do you think these things are peculiar to MIT?

I do not think that they are peculiar to MIT. I didn't say that at all. All was saying was that MIT has made so many amazing things in the past and it would be an amazing experience to be part of their program.
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