New book on using the Mini-Cube for STEM now in paperback

I’ve posted here many times about JP Aerospace, which has been flying high altitude balloons and airships for over 30 years. Founded and led by John Powell, the part professional, part volunteer organization has won USAF contracts, carried out multiple promotional flights for companies from around the world, and developed a number of innovations in the technology of Near Space.

Furthermore, JPA has a very active education program. Over 50,000 students have had their PongSats taken to the edge of space for free by JPA.

FourPongSatsOn2014FlightFour PongSats mounted on a JPA balloon structure
during a high-altitude flight in October 2014.

A PongSat is a ping-pong ball with a tiny experiment inside of it. A few years ago, JPA introduced the Mini-Cube, which provides a standardize plastic box structure, 5 cm to a side, in which more sophisticated and elaborate experiments can be enclosed and flown for a fee to Near Space.

minicubebanner[1]

Back in May I posted about an ebook written by Gregory N. Cecil that provides a step-by-step tutorials for teachers, students, and anyone else on how use a Mini-Cube for low-cost educational Near Space experiments and demonstrations. The book is now available in paperback: Classroom Laboratory at the Edge of Space: Introducing the Mini-Cube Program.

A book written for secondary public and private school STEM instructors, home schooling, and undergraduate STEM courses of study explaining how to set up their own student focused “space program” utilizing the Mini-Cube Program. With this Informal STEM Project Based Learning Activity, students can have the unique, affordable, and challenging opportunity to send experiments via high altitude balloon to an altitude of 100,000 feet (20 miles or 32 km), commonly known as the “edge of space.” Utilizing the scientific method, team work, research, and communicating in writing the results and applications for peer review, students will participate in the full cycle of an actual experiment from the original question to the published results and conduct true science at the edge of space.

Utilizing the scientific method, team work, research, and communicating in writing the results and applications for peer review, students will participate in the full cycle of an actual experiment from the original question to the published results and conduct true science at the edge of space.

Here is the table of contents for the book:

BookTOC