Friends, family, rain and helium

Boo, I got a back up plan to the back up plan. To back up my back up plan.

Our testing location and helium order both fell through so I had to get creative. Last night I scouted out a parking garage riiiiggghhhht before it got dark and today we have the PERFECT spot for our last day of drop testing.

Everyone is wearing their best rainproof business casual attire.

It is C-O-L-D and drizzly...a stark contrast to the hot and sunny weather of a day or two ago. It's good though...it gives our space dongle (atmospheric probe) something to do.

After dropping into a bunch of pedestrians I am thrilled to have an empty and protected space where we can work.

Everyone has their system. Everyone is communicating well and working hard. Despite the frigid temps and the ongoing rain my team remained upbeat. And after they had gone home and showered they were all back on the computer processing data, uploading videos and doing analysis. I hit the jackpot.

Jimmy engineered a rigging system to get the payload train away from obstacles and a mechanism to make it release on command. We were also thankful for the addition of a line to pull everything back up with....7 flights is a lot of stairs.

If the chute gets tangled during the Caramore maneuver and doesn't deploy from 80 ft up....you're gonna crunch your hull.

When the hull can't be taped to death anymore what do you do? Do you go home? Nope. You make a hull out of a grocery bag and keep chucking those electronics.

American Tobacco Drop Testing

Our payload train works and our chute is bringing everything down safely. More wiring excitement today. Erick had to get David up to date on the code by spelling everything out phonetically over the phone. We also realized through extreme testing that we all need to wear more sunscreen. Additionally, we need whistles.