Weather Balloon Payload

Within the constraints of recycled material on the LA Blue Bin list, we decided to create something mainly out of paper and cardboard. The base of our payload was made out of cardboard and covered in two layers of paper mache. We created walls out of popsicle sticks to restrain the mockups from moving around during the drop test. We left a window where the camera could record. We covered the payload with plastic wrap and used air bubble packaging to further secure the mockups. Our payload survived the 8 foot drop. For the weather data section of the project, we concluded that the climate of Los Angeles will change over the next 10 years. We are now starting to see the effects of climate change and we predict less precipitation in Los Angeles accompanied by major heatwaves. We used New York City as our second point to compare our historical weather data. As compared to the graph we created for Los Angeles, we can see that the East Coast city has more rain and a lower average temperature. We learned that is in part because the Gulf Stream brings frigid air right over the northeastern United States. Aside from ocean currents, the East Coast is also affected by western winds. These two factors make it much colder than the West Coast.