This project is a part of the Apex event as a part of Hack Club. This event fund us to send a research project on a high altitude weather balloon to over 100,000 feet. As a part of this project, our team and project will be flown out to Boston where there will be about 14 other teams also launching their payloads. Our project will include 2 different ways to detect ionizing radiation from the sun. We will have 2 CosmicWatch detectors as the main detection method. We will use 2 to allow us to disinguish between muons and other forms of cosmic ray radiation. We will also have a camera with its lense blocked recording video. When ionizing radiation hits the camera's sensor, it will create a bright spot. This is not a great way of measuring data, but we think it will be helpful to visualize these radiation events. These 2 methods should allow us to model a clear relationship between altitude and different forms of radiation.
Why do we have 2 detectors?
Muons are created when cosmic ray radiation from the sum hit particles in the Earth's atmosphere. These muons can easily penetrate solid objects, meaning they will pass through the CosmicWatches while being detected. This is the reason we have 2 detectors, if both of them detect an event at the same time, then it was likely a muon and not some other form of radiation.
- Timeline of detection events from CosmicWatches
- Intesity of detection events from CosmicWatches
- Video from camera
- 2 CosmicWatch Muon Detectors
- Rasberry Pi 2W
- Rasberry Pi Camera HQ
- Battery Box with about 3 Energizer Ultimate Lithium Batteries
- Buck Boost Converter to get to 5v
- Styrofoam box to insulate the components
- 3D printed frame
*Professional artist representation of the ATAL Muon Detector getting shot down by the US government after they thought it was a Chinese spy balloon.
The Google Doc is where we put the majority of our reaasearch, work and files throughout the entire course of the project; we where not informed that we had to activley use github to prove that we where working becuase we where told that the time tracker would be doing that. This is just a .PDF becuase it is on our school accounts
Acsess to presentational slideshow https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1M4aht4pCl_btqryhWPEbzO4pHZW-teJE9TqAJX9XfbE/edit?usp=sharing