Monthly Archives: September 2013

High Altitude Ballooning Workshop at Metropolitan Community College

The NASA Nebraska Space Grant is proud to announce that a workshop for the NASA Nebraska High Altitude Ballooning (N-NHAB) program is open for registration. This workshop will be a 1.5 quarter credit hour course through Metropolitan Community College, equal to 1 hour of semester credit. It is open to college / university students and faculty, and K-12 educators. The workshop’s maximum number of participants is set to 20.

Course Description: This course is a short workshop designed to introduce participants to the world of High-Altitude Ballooning (HAB). It provides the background necessary to design a flight pod with scientific instrumentation, and to participate in a HAB flight to upwards of 100,000ft (19mi) above the Earth’s surface. Students will also participate in the tracking and retrieval of their payload, as well as the analysis of the retrieved data.

Course Objectives:

To help the student learn the skills necessary to:

1. Demonstrate an understanding of how physical properties can be measured using probes for data acquisition;

2. Demonstrate an ability to work collaboratively in small groups to develop a research question and to solve a design problem;

3. Participate in a high-altitude balloon launch and retrieval of equipment;

4. Analyze data retrieved from balloon launch;

5. Effectively communicate results from data analysis;

6. Prepare for future HAB opportunities.

Workshop Schedule:

At MCC South Omaha Campus – Mahoney Room 400

Friday, October 4th from 7-9 pm (Introduction and Background)

Friday, October 11th from 7-9 pm (Development of Research Projects)

Friday, October 18th from 7-9 pm (Final Preparation of Pods and Data Format Overview)

Saturday, October 19th from 8 am-4 pm (Launch and Chase)

Friday, October 25th from 7-9 pm (Final Reports)

NASA – NHAB Workshop Registration: 

If you are currently a student at Metropolitan Community College, or have previously taken a credit or non-credit course at Metro, you may register by logging onto your My Way account from the MCC website. The course is available through Express Registration through the Student’s section on My Way.

Metro’s Main website: http://www.mccneb.edu/

The course number is: PHYS_2900_9A

The instructor is Kendra Sibbernsen

Select PHYS – Physics as the subject, the course number is 2900, type in 9A for the section number, and select 13/FA 2013 Credit Fall for the Term. The class is called “Special Topics in Physics: High Altitude Ballooning.” Select Register and Click Submit.

If you have previously taken a course at Metro, but do not remember your password, go to the “Password Station.” http://www.mccneb.edu/password/

If you have not taken a class from Metro, here is the main page for prospective students: http://www.mccneb.edu/gomcc/

Since Metro has an open door policy, the only requirements for admission are that you are 18 years of age and have a high school diploma or equivalent. A phone call or email to enrollment services should allow you to get a WebAdvisor login and password. You can sign up to take classes at Metro online through you WebAdvisor account (which is very simple to do), you can call and register over the phone, or you can go in talk to an advisor to register. http://www.mccneb.edu/futurestudents/register.asp