Up, up and away with Cache Makers

In what used to be endeavors just for college or graduate students, young kids between eight and 16-years-old are doing amazing things when it comes to high-tech projects. Locally the Cache Makers 4-H Club is assisting young ones with hands-on experience.

From that group 14-year-old Jenna Porter and 11-year-olds Madi Frandsen and Natalie Lyman were on <a href=”http://610kvnu.com/assets/podcaster/324/2016_06_24_324_46334_2867.mp3″ target=”_blank”>KVNU’s For the People program on Thursday</a>. Natalie and Madi talked about how they got into the group and about their latest project involving a balloon launch.

“My dad told me about this program where you could make an L.E.D. sign and you could program it to make any words you want it to do. So we did that. And Kevin, our leader in our balloon launch, he was in that group and he told my Dad and I about this balloon launch and we decided we would do it,” said Natalie.

Madi explained what they did. “We launched a huge balloon with these boxes with devices inside of them. They were hooked up to the balloon when it launched. It was cool.”

The launch took place at Nibley Park on June 11th. Data collected included how high the device reached, which was 112,000 feet (or just over 21 miles), degrees of turning, temperature and its location. The students built the device that was launched with all its circuitry.

The device was airborne for about an hour-and-a-half before the balloon popped and it fell back to earth landing near Thatcher, Idaho. The students also built the tracking devices to locate the payload.

Cache Makers co-founder Kevin Reeve was a mentor for the girls on this project.

”So, I have this philosophy: you can either read about cool stuff in a text book, you can watch cool videos on YouTube or you can do it. Cache Makers is about hands-on, fun projects that you do,” Reeve said.

For more information on the club, go to CacheMakers.org.

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