The duo claim to be the first people to send a do-it-yourself space camera to the edge of the Earth's atmosphere. In the past, capturing these kind of images has been reserved for big-budget agencies like NASA.
The idea was 20-year-old Oliver Yeh's, a student studying computer science and electrical engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in America.
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To create the budget space camera, the students bought a normal camera on eBay and fastened it inside a styrofoam cooler. They then poked a hole in the side of the cooler for the camera lens. To keep track of the space camera's whereabouts they attached a mobile phone and a wireless router to send GPS coordinates back down to Earth.
They set the camera to take a photo every five seconds.
The handwarmer - the type skiers put in their gloves - was taped to the phone's battery to prevent it freezing. The whole package was strapped to a spherical weather balloon filled with helium and sent to the edge of space to take the extraordinary images.
The students calculated that after 17 miles upward, the air pressure would force the weather balloon to pop so they attached a parachute to lower it down to Earth safely. The GPS in the phone would then help them track where the camera had landed.
To avoid the balloon landing in the ocean or Boston City Centre, Yeh and Lee, looked online for the wind speed and direction. Using this information they calculated the best date, time and location to launch the balloon. In case their calculations were wrong, they attached their contact details and offered a £25 reward to anyone finding the box.
The students launched the balloon on the morning of September 2 after travelling 60 miles inland to a warehouse in Sturbridge, Massachusetts. The balloon was in the air for five hours before the air pressure forced it down.
The duo were amazed when they found the camera unharmed at a construction zone outside Worcester, Massachusetts, 25 miles away from the launch site.
Yey's partner in the project, 23-year-old mechanical engineering grad student Justin Lee, said: "We were like placing bets on whether we thought it would work or not. Early on, we were optimistic that it would work. About 4 hours after, [when] we hadn't heard any news about the device, we had sort of given up hope. We'd thought we'd lost it."
After finding the signal, Lee added: "We were so excited, we jumped right back into the car, and we drove out to Worcester, and we found it. That was a great moment.
"There's something that's fascinating about seeing the Earth from high - I can't quite put my finger on it. There's something just beautiful about seeing that."
The idea was 20-year-old Oliver Yeh's, a student studying computer science and electrical engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in America.
Related Articles
Christmas gadgets for active types
The weekend's television choices
Monday's TV & radio choices
To create the budget space camera, the students bought a normal camera on eBay and fastened it inside a styrofoam cooler. They then poked a hole in the side of the cooler for the camera lens. To keep track of the space camera's whereabouts they attached a mobile phone and a wireless router to send GPS coordinates back down to Earth.
They set the camera to take a photo every five seconds.
The handwarmer - the type skiers put in their gloves - was taped to the phone's battery to prevent it freezing. The whole package was strapped to a spherical weather balloon filled with helium and sent to the edge of space to take the extraordinary images.
The students calculated that after 17 miles upward, the air pressure would force the weather balloon to pop so they attached a parachute to lower it down to Earth safely. The GPS in the phone would then help them track where the camera had landed.
To avoid the balloon landing in the ocean or Boston City Centre, Yeh and Lee, looked online for the wind speed and direction. Using this information they calculated the best date, time and location to launch the balloon. In case their calculations were wrong, they attached their contact details and offered a £25 reward to anyone finding the box.
The students launched the balloon on the morning of September 2 after travelling 60 miles inland to a warehouse in Sturbridge, Massachusetts. The balloon was in the air for five hours before the air pressure forced it down.
The duo were amazed when they found the camera unharmed at a construction zone outside Worcester, Massachusetts, 25 miles away from the launch site.
Yey's partner in the project, 23-year-old mechanical engineering grad student Justin Lee, said: "We were like placing bets on whether we thought it would work or not. Early on, we were optimistic that it would work. About 4 hours after, [when] we hadn't heard any news about the device, we had sort of given up hope. We'd thought we'd lost it."
After finding the signal, Lee added: "We were so excited, we jumped right back into the car, and we drove out to Worcester, and we found it. That was a great moment.
"There's something that's fascinating about seeing the Earth from high - I can't quite put my finger on it. There's something just beautiful about seeing that."
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