Asgard Programme 2023

A report from the St Paul’s Asgard XII team

Each year, a group of Paulines makes a trip to Brussels to take part in the annual Asgard programme.

The programme requires participants to create a science experiment that is launched around thirty kilometres into the air on a weather balloon. Our project aimed to transmit radio waves, reflect them off the ionosphere, and receive them in the balloon.

On the first day, we arrived at the hotel and prepared for the next day when we would give our presentations. After unpacking and settling in our rooms, we started testing our equipment.

The next day, at the planetarium, we listened to the other teams’ presentations, before presenting our own, all of which went smoothly. We had a small scare during the lunch break due to a few unexpected results; however, this was merely interference from nearby power lines.

In the afternoon, Charlie, Aryan and Erik integrated our receiver into the gondola, after which we visited the Atomium; a giant, molecule-like structure, whose huge metal spheres contain various abstract art installations, predominantly focused around light. For dinner, we went to a pizzeria where we practised our French skills, before returning to the hotel.

The launch day was busy and the hardest part of the trip. The final checks before launch revealed hopefully the last bump on the road: a disconnected wire. We quickly reattached it and powered on the receiver.

Due to length restrictions on the Eurostar, our antenna had to be assembled on site, which was troublesome as it was too flexible. Thankfully, an engineering solution from Lucas made the antenna much more stable.

We also ran into an issue regarding how we would source the sufficient length of wire to connect the laptop to the Yagi antenna. This was quickly resolved after Ishan pointed out that we could simply snip the ends of the original dipole to use as wire. We just completed it in time, before propping it up against three wooden benches and switching on our transmitter.

During the flight, we began to worry that our receiver on the balloon may have been left coiled up, attached to the side of the gondola. That would have proved catastrophic, but we were informed that it was indeed uncoiled and used for the balloon’s recovery.

Despite almost travelling to the wrong location to collect our experiment (the balloons were recovered near Düsseldorf that afternoon), we returned to our hotel in good time before beginning to process our results.

On the final day of the trip, we presented our preliminary results to the other teams. Unfortunately, many of the teams did not receive any results at all, but some other teams still managed to gather some data and the results gained by another team on the same balloon as us will be invaluable for processing our own.

Finally, all the teams were kindly invited by Erik to his school (St-Pieterscollege Jette) for a pizza lunch where we said our goodbyes to the other schools before leaving for the train station, where we made one final stop for Belgian chocolates before boarding the Eurostar.

Asgard XII Participants

Teachers: Dr Patterson and Mr Pollock

Pupils: Aryan, Charlie, Ishan, Lucas, Zubin, Edward and Tolga (all Fifth Form).