Hands-on aerospace education: a NASA-funded project using makerspaces to prepare undergrads for high-altitude ballooning during the 2024 total solar eclipse.
| Role | Stack | Outcome |
|---|---|---|
| Co-PI; designed the makerspace-to-mission workflow, led technical training, and coordinated fabrication, testing, and ops checklists with faculty collaborators. | Payload prototyping (electronics, enclosure design), environmental sensing, firmware & logging, test protocols (bench + field), flight planning & recovery workflows. | Built a repeatable curriculum that turns first-principles making into near-space flight readiness. Formalized a collaboration model (faculty × students × makerspaces) that can be replicated for future eclipse/ballooning campaigns. |
Co-PI on a NASA-funded project, Total Solar Eclipse 2024: Engaging Undergraduate Students at DePaul University through High-Altitude Ballooning and Makerspaces ($20,000). The work connected near-space payload design with makerspace pedagogy to give students a rigorous, build-driven pathway into aerospace instrumentation, flight readiness, and field operations for the April 8, 2024 eclipse.
Areas investigated: Experiential aerospace education; instrumentation design; data collection; safety & ops; curriculum design for makerspaces.
Failures and learnings
Future improvements
Materials and tools list