Woody & Buzz's Adventure

So if you read my last post you know that my goal this summer is to be able to attach a video camera to a balloon, let it go and track it down to see the video.  This weekend, I took a very small step is testing this out and well, it did not go so well.  I do have to admit I really had no idea what would happen so I wasn't overly disappointed, but disappointed none the less.

I decided to take an older camera that I have that shoots video and attach it to a kite. Before you say "that sounds easy" you should know I was dealing with a $5 kite from Wal-Mart (sorry Lex) and a Sony point and shoot camera that was (yes, was) about 8 years old. I ended up coming up with something that looked like this:

Yeah, I know what you are thinking..."How did you ever think that would work?"  Well, it was really windy and the camera was pretty light.  All though the video worked just fine, all I got was video of a kite twisting in the wind 3 foot off the ground and a lot of pavement.

The whole point of this test was to learn, so this is what I learned:

1.)  $5 kites from Wal-Mart are not good for conducting any kind of test.
2.)  Sony cameras do not like to hit the ground, even with padding.
3.)  Do not conduct any experiment where Woody and Buzz could meet their demise with your 3 year old daughter watching.

All kidding aside, I did learn a lot and my next test will involve a lot of helium balloons and a camera so we will see how that works out!!  Between now and then I will have to replace a little girls Woody and Buzz kite so all will be right with the world!!