Researchers have successfully broadcast a WiFi signal several hundred miles, so we were optimistic that we’d be able to shoot for a modest 50 miles. After (very) briefly investigating a 50-mile long Ethernet cord, we settled on WiFi-the very same WiFi you use every day. TCP/IP, the communication protocol of the Internet, has been implemented over amateur radio before, but for us to do so would probably require a Hack Year instead of a week. Since standard cell phone 3G fails at high altitudes, we needed to find an alternative Internet source. Our next challenge was figuring out how to hook our balloon up with Internet. Thanks to a few pleading phone calls and lots of overnight shipping (thanks Amazon Prime!), everything arrived in time for Hack Week. Research & Preparation About two weeks before Hack Week started, we began researching high altitude weather balloons and the legendary shopping list needed to launch one - from the balloon itself to radar reflectors, parachutes, and oversized helium tanks. With an Internet connection, we’d be able to use Dropbox’s brand new Camera Uploads feature to beam live photos from our balloon back to “mission control.” And it worked! Sort of. At 100,000 feet above the ground, these photos and videos would capture the curvature of the Earth! In true Dropbox spirit, there’s also an added twist: we wanted the balloon to have Internet the entire flight. Attached were two Android smartphones: one programmed to take periodic photos, and the other to record video of the entire flight. Intro To do this, we decided to launch a high altitude helium balloon into the stratosphere.
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