Project Stratobear Introduction

Introduction:

Project Stratobear is a senior project for three students at The Marine Academy of Science and Technology. The project will center around the goal of studying the upper atmospheric effect on Tardigrades (Waterbears). A Tardigrade is a small water dwelling micro-animal with six legs which have been hypothesized to have come from outer space. The Tardigrade is an extremophile which means it can survive in extreme conditions of heat and cold. The project involves constructing a weather balloon probe that would mimic the atmospheric effects of space to Earth entry.

Because of our project's diverse needs our group has chosen to split up the work and specialize in different areas:

Joseph Nardone- Team leader and probe housing engineer. The design challenge he will face is designing containment that will not only hold the Tardigrades into a specific area, but will also expose them to the atmospheric environment.

Nate Librizzi- Launch and recovery engineer. The design challenge he will face is designing a method to return the probe not only slowly, but also upright to preserve the Tardigrade containment.

Connor Varley- Navigation and camera operation engineer. The design challenge he will face is enabling the probe to be tracked while it flies and then relocated in a timely fashion.

Mentors- 
Our group has multiple mentors spanning from MakerSpace members to the famous naturalist Mike Shaw. With these mentors we are able to gain expert information on different topics we will be exploring.