I launched a payload to the stratosphere to measure algae fluorescence

A high school student designed and launched a custom high-altitude balloon payload to 100,000+ feet to measure algae fluorescence in stratospheric conditions. The project involved designing PCBs with sensors (AS7263 spectral sensor, Neo 6M GPS), implementing extreme image compression to transmit photos over LoRa within 250-byte limits, and building a custom data packer to fit telemetry into 45 bytes. Despite GPS malfunctions and payload loss in a forest, the project successfully collected data and demonstrated hardware design, environmental testing, and data transmission under severe constraints.