Kentucky College Students to Assist in NASA-Sponsored Eclipse Live-Stream Project

John Paul: “Inside the payload we have a very small constructed Arduino board that’s basically a tiny computer that makes the live streaming possible.”

Father’s Pride: My son John Paul Beard is mentioned in this news story for his role as the Logistics Coordinator on the Balloon Sat Team consisting of students and faculty from the Kentucky Space Grant Consortium at Bluegrass Community and Technical College (BCTC).

By Cheri Lawson, WEKU

A team from Bluegrass Community and Technical College will live-stream eclipse footage as part of a national Eclipse Ballooning Project

The NASA-sponsored project, which is led by the Montana Space Grant Consortium at Montana State University, has been years in the making.

In a classroom laboratory at Bluegrass Community and Technical College in Lexington students Alex Eberle and John Paul Beard are making sure all the equipment they need is in order for Monday.

The students are part of a team that will help live stream the Great American Eclipse,  by sending up a helium-filled balloon about the size of a small van. It will carry a video camera and other equipment into the atmosphere to an altitude up to 100,000 feet.

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John Paul Beard points to the video camera that will actually stream the event. It’s  housed in what looks like a white styrofoam ball about as big as a basketball. He refers to it as “the payload.”

John Paul: “Inside the payload we have a very small constructed Arduino board that’s basically a tiny computer that makes the live streaming possible.”

To read entire article or listen to the radio spot, click HERE.

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