Brophy students launch weather balloons

PHOENIX (KSAZ) - The space club at Brophy College Preparatory is taking science to new heights. The students constructed a weather balloon, complete with a GoPro camera and a 3D printed replica of their school chapel.

"We were going to get this amazing video of the Brophy Chapel Tower in space, you know a hundred thousand feet up, of course, the ascent, the decent, it was going to be really great," said Grant Schuchter.

Club president Grant Shuchter says the mission went awry when the balloon launched Saturday the GPS tracker died, and the balloon drifted east to Globe without a signal.

"We drove out there, a couple of students and myself, and we searched for about three hours with no luck," said Schuchter.

"Given that it was my GoPro I was quite upset, but you know it's all fine, we're gonna do another one, we're going to accomplish the mission that we set out to," said Connor De Boer.

The second balloon will now have two GPS sensors just to be safe, though the team is hopeful of getting the original balloon back.

"We know exactly what we did wrong, and what we did right, so we can reconvene and see how that does, and that is really important to learn how the real world works. There're mistakes, but instead of quitting, we know what to do this time and learn from it," said Grant Gaylord.