weather_balloon.py

Predicts where you need to launch your weather balloon in order for it to land on your desired coordinates.

Setup

Change the values (aside from 'launchsite', 'lat', 'lon', and 'submit') in the payload dictionary to what you want:

self.payload = {'launchsite' : 'Other',
                'lat'        : str(lat),
                'lon'        : str(lon),
                # Edit values within lines
                # --------------------------------
                'initial_alt': '0',  # (m)
                'hour'       : '15',  # (UTC)
                'min'        : '0',
                'second'     : '0',
                'day'        : '5',
                'month'      : '8',
                'year'       : '2015',
                'ascent'     : '5',  # (m/s)
                'burst'      : '30000',  # (m)
                'drag'       : '5',  # (m/s)
                # --------------------------------
                'submit'     : 'Run Prediction'}

Usage

python weather_balloon.py

Enter latitude and longitude:

Latitude?
> 44.2708
Longitude?
> -71.2978

Allow the program to run for 3-5 minutes.

Results

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The best launching coordinates are (43.9008, -72.7478), which lands on (44.2761, -71.296)
HabHub Predictor URL: http://predict.habhub.org/#!/uuid=ec06ebefb2322b21955433f83a356e8e2eb395c3
Google Maps launch site URL: https://www.google.com/maps/place/43.9008+-72.7478
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Dependencies

weather_balloon.py requires the Python Requests module. You can install this by using pip:

pip install requests

Reference

This program uses a predictor tool from habhub.