[HSIS] Talk with Bill Brown

[Ethan Chew]

Hey,

      I just had a phone conversation with Bill Brown.  He and I came to the
following for our first flight launch day:

   - He has offered to launch a payload similar to ours built his way;
   tracking device and a camera.  We will be flying our current payload as is
   along with his on the same balloon.  We can then compare how well they work.
   - He will have a couple of his trackers come with us to recover the
   balloon.

For the future launches when we do our competition flight:

   - He has recommendations for us to not use GPS and use a really cheap
   radio chirper on the balloon and tracking it with ham radios on the ground
   using direction finding and ground-based GPS to triangulate.
   - He has access to several very cheap parts for photography and tracking
   that could meet the competition's requirement for under $150/build for one
   vehicle.
   - Replace the hot hands and cooler with a wrap of three layers of bubble
   wrap.  It will act like a greenhouse powered by uninterrupted sun at
   altitude during the day.  He has flown and tested this successfully.  It is
   able to keep the payload above freezing temperatures.  <- I will later
   modify our payload to use this.

On another note, he advised the original MIT team for Project Icarus and
mentioned that the cell phone and camera method had a failure rate (loss of
payload) of 3 in 4 since they would lose cell signal at altitude.
Therefore, we had to be careful with following MIT's project.

Also, since he would like to fly with us on Saturday, he would like to meet
at our launch site at Hartselle's J&M cylinder at 10am and launch at 11am.
Are we okay with this schedule change?

            - Ethan
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