Canadian teens launch Lego Man into space

A tiny Lego man clutching a Canadian flag has made history of sorts, making the first space flight for Lego-kind aboard a weather balloon rigged by two high school students from Toronto, Canada.

 

Canadian teenagers Mathew Ho and Asad Muhammad, both 17, attached the figurine - and four cameras - to a helium balloon that went up 80,000 feet into the air, the Toronto Star reported.

 

When the Lego man and the cameras returned to Earth 97 minutes later, they brought footage from some 24 km above sea level, or three times the typical cruising altitude of a commercial aircraft, the Toronto Star said.

 

“We didn’t really believe we could do it until we did,” said Ho.

 

“It shows a tremendous degree of resourcefulness ... For two 17-year-olds to accomplish this on their own is pretty impressive,” said University of Toronto astrophysics professor Dr. Michael Reid.

 

$400 project

 

The $400 project, which took four months of free Saturdays, was not a school assignment, though the two teens thought it would be cool.

 

Ho, who has applied to Queen’s University and University of British Columbia for commerce, thought of the project two years ago when he saw an online video of a balloon sent to near space by some Massachusetts Institute of Technology students.

 

He approached Muhammad - who has a passion for all things flight-related and has applied to an engineering programs at U of T and Centennial College - in the hallway of Agincourt Collegiate Institute, where they are both Grade 12 students.

 

Since last September, the two spent Saturdays at Ho’s kitchen table in Scarborough, drawing up plans and building the balloon. Built from scratch

 

“People would walk into the house and see us building this fantastical thing with a parachute from scratch, and they would be like, ‘What are you doing?' We’d be like, ‘We’re sending cameras to space.’ They’d be like, ‘Oh, okayyyyy…,’” Ho said.

 

While Ho assembled a super-light Styrofoam box to carry the cameras, the two scoured Craigslist and Kijiji for used point-and-shoot cameras.

 

They also produced a rip-stop nylon parachute that they tested by throwing off the roof of Ho’s father's 40-story condominium unit.

 

Other parts included an $85 weather balloon ordered online, and $160 worth of helium from a party supply store. Ho bought a special wide-angle video camera.

 

After assembling the balloon, the boys loaded the Lego man and the cameras, along with a cell phone with a downloaded GPS app.

 

When the balloon passed seven km above sea level - out of cellphone-tower range - the GPS signal cut out, prompting the boys to go home and make dumplings.

 

But at 4:12 p.m., Ho’s iPad started to beep, indicating their "Lego-naut" had re-entered the atmosphere. The balloon touched down in a field near Rice Lake, 122 km from its launch point.

 

The teens calculated the craft had climbed to about 80,000 feet in one hour and five minutes before the balloon exploded, beginning the Lego man’s 32-minute descent. Reviewing the footage

 

When the teens got home and uploaded the two videos and 1,500 photos onto a computer for review, they started screaming.

 

The YouTube footage shows the Lego man spinning at an altitude three times higher than the peak of Mount Everest, before the balloon bursts and he starts to plummet.

 

“We never knew it would be this good,” says Ho, who turned to Muhammad and said, “Congratulations Asad, we did it,” then shook his hand.

 

Official congratulations from Lego

 

UK's The Guardian said Lego sent a note of congratulations to the boys.

 

"We are always amazed by the creative ways in which Lego fans use our products, and humbled by how many unsuspecting places we appear, like attached to a helium balloon in … space," The Guardian quoted the company's brand relations director, Michael McNally, as saying. — TJD, GMA News