Company helps students launch weather balloon from downtown Cedar Rapids

CEDAR RAPIDS - Slowly, the 1,200-gram balloon swelled, inflating above the heads of more than a dozen people gathered on the roof of a downtown Cedar Rapids parking garage.

Then, without much ado, the helium-filled object was released. It rose higher and higher, eventually disappearing in the glare of the sun.

A partnership between the Metro High School STEAM Academy and Cedar Rapids office of GreatAmerica Financial Services Corp. also took with Monday's launch of the weather balloon launch from atop a garage near the GreatAmerica Building on First Street SE.

The launch served as a promotional opportunity for GreatAmerica, which funded the cost of the balloon. The company is celebrating its 25th anniversary this year, and staff decided to mark the milestone through a balloon launch with the hope of putting their logo in space.

While researching the topic online, Dusty Kelchen, marketing director for GreatAmerica, said company officials discovered a video of the STEAM Academy students launching a balloon last spring and decided to partner with the school rather than conduct their own launch.

'It's awesome to see this all come together,” Kelchen said.

The weather balloon launch allows students to continue studying data they've been collected for the past two years, said Chuck Tonelli, a STEAM Academy teacher. This was the fourth balloon launched by students in past two years.

Shannon Ellis, another STEAM Academy teacher, said the data collection system attached to the balloon recorded information on altitude, temperature and barometric pressure, among other items, while climbing to a height of nearly 90,000 feet. Much of the information is sent back in real time.

'It's fun to get this stuff back, because then we can talk about what we learned about ... and what we should do differently next time,” Tonelli said.

Kurtis Crosbie and Robert Sakshaug, juniors at Metro High and members of the STEAM Academy, were among the dozen students setting up the launch Monday. Both said they feel activities such as the launch are valuable learning opportunities.

Monday's launch went off without a hitch and the balloon landed near Lost Nation, a town in Clinton County about 50 miles east of Cedar Rapids.

'I think everything went really well,” Tonelli said.

Metro High's last launch in April also went off without a hitch, but there were complications once it was in flight. The balloon and the data collection equipment it carried, were lost. The balloon was eventually found, but Tonelli said they never located the GPS and data logger, since the payload had broken open somewhere along the journey.

'Not getting data from the last balloon was disappointing because we don't know anything about it,” Tonelli said.

However, he is hopeful Monday's launch opens the door to other potential community partnerships.

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