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Thursday, May 7, 2009

The COCTEAU Twins? 6 Ib limit, Bluetooth

There comes an important moment in every project... when you have to give it a witty acronym.

I started off with the purely functional -
Cyclo-
Olefin
Canopy
Test,
COCT.

Well, how about adding an EAU?

Cyclo-
Olefin
Canopy
Test
Experiment for
Absorbance in
Ultraviolet

Sorted! Although I was always a more Teardrop Explodes man myself.

But then I thought... Cocteau Twins... Why not actually fly TWO balloons for the gag?

And then I realised that this was actually extremely useful from a practical point of view!

In the U.S at least, the weight limit for weather balloons is 6 Ib. Heavier than this and you need all sorts of special permission.

But... Why not launch multiple balloons at the same time??
One could do our biology experiment...
One could provide the radio communications... And so on!
"All" you'd need is some form of cross-balloon coms - Bluetooth or Wifi perhaps.
This would be imperilled if the balloons drifted too far apart, but if they weighed the same and were launched side by side simultaneously, they should stick fairly close together.
...Shouldn't they?
Again, something nice to test!

A useful away perhaps to fly more than 6Ib in one go (about 2.7kg Metric)
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