Geez, what was I doing at 17?
January 26th, 2012 08:50 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rebecky_mo"Neither Mathew Ho nor Asad Muhammad can vote, or buy beer.
They haven’t been accepted to college yet, though that might change after this story.
The 17-year-olds have already sent a (Lego) man into space.
Two weeks ago, Ho and Muhammad launched a homemade balloon carrying a Lego passenger and four cameras. It fell back down to Earth 97 minutes later with astonishing footage from an estimated 24 kilometres above sea level, three times the typical cruising altitude of a commercial aircraft. Their jerry-rigged contraption recorded the Lego man’s journey from a soccer pitch in Newmarket to the stratosphere — high enough to see their two-inch astronaut floating above curvature of our planet, clutching a Canadian flag with the blackness of space behind him.
The project cost $400 and took four months of free Saturdays. It wasn’t a school assignment. They just thought it would be cool.
...“It shows a tremendous degree of resourcefulness,” says Dr. Michael Reid, a University of Toronto astrophysics professor. Noting that similar projects had been undertaken by PhD students, he said, “For two 17-year-olds to accomplish this on their own is pretty impressive.” " source
Now this? This is cool. Check out the pictures linked to the story!
They haven’t been accepted to college yet, though that might change after this story.
The 17-year-olds have already sent a (Lego) man into space.
Two weeks ago, Ho and Muhammad launched a homemade balloon carrying a Lego passenger and four cameras. It fell back down to Earth 97 minutes later with astonishing footage from an estimated 24 kilometres above sea level, three times the typical cruising altitude of a commercial aircraft. Their jerry-rigged contraption recorded the Lego man’s journey from a soccer pitch in Newmarket to the stratosphere — high enough to see their two-inch astronaut floating above curvature of our planet, clutching a Canadian flag with the blackness of space behind him.
The project cost $400 and took four months of free Saturdays. It wasn’t a school assignment. They just thought it would be cool.
...“It shows a tremendous degree of resourcefulness,” says Dr. Michael Reid, a University of Toronto astrophysics professor. Noting that similar projects had been undertaken by PhD students, he said, “For two 17-year-olds to accomplish this on their own is pretty impressive.” " source
Now this? This is cool. Check out the pictures linked to the story!
