It was one small step, one giant leap for Lego kind. Two teens from Toronto successfully sent a Lego Man into space using a homemade weather balloon.
Mathew Ho and Asad Muhammad sent their Lego passenger and four cameras 78,000 feet above the earth which is about three times the altitude of a commercial airplane.
The Star reports that the two teen’s space venture wasn’t part of a school project. They just wanted to see if they could do it.
Dr. Michael Reid, a University of Toronto astrophysics professor, said:
“It shows a tremendous degree of resourcefulness. For two 17-year-olds to accomplish this on their own is pretty impressive.”
Here’s the video of Lego Man’s journey into space.
Ho and Muhammad said that they were inspired by a similar video posted by a group of MIT students. It took the duo nearly four months to research and build the contraption. They bought a professional weather balloon, $160 worth of helium from a party store, a special wide angle camera, and a GPS system to help them locate their project once it fell back to earth.
They also sewed their own parachute.
Ho said:
“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….’ By no means are we, like, seamstresses. We broke like, what, four needles? It was ridiculous.”
Are you impressed with Lego Man’s space journey?
