Materials:
- Weather balloon filled with hellium
- A small beer freezer
- Cheap digital camera
- prepaid cheap cellphone with GPS

Here's how you do it:
1. Get ready for the launch, hack the camera to shoot every few seconds
2. Attach the balloon to the freezer
3. Put camera and cellphone inside
4. Let go
5. Wait for the balloon to poof and then use the GPS tracker to find the freezer when it falls.

Total Cost: $148

http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2009/09/the-150-space-camera-mit-students-beat-nasa-on-beer-money-budget?npu=1&mbid=yhp
GG NASA?


Discuss.

lol they got owned

just wondering, what if the cooler hit someone on the way down?

People... can fly..?

no like, when it lands, it bonks osmeone on the head/ hits a plane/ hits a house

I'd think it was a terrorist attack if a cooler fell from space down to my house.

...
It's a styrofoam box.
It's extremely light, and its shape has horrible aerodynamics.
Dropping it on someone's head from 18 miles up is probably about the same as from 18 feet. It might be a good bop on the head...

umm even if its styrofoam, and it has horrible aerodynamics, it'd at the very least put someone in a coma.
18 freaking miles. a styrofoam box is like at the lightest, what, a few ounces?
a few ounces that drops 18 miles is still gonna hurt

Styrofoam has plenty of air resistance (is not dense) such that its terminal velocity is going to be pretty slow.

Epic win for MIT, yet again

slow, at 18 miles, its still gonna hurt. you should know 18 miles up in the air.

They should've put some model rocket engines on the bottom set to go off once it started falling to get it up even higher.

You need to read this article thoroughly.

It doesn't matter.
If I had to guess, my "about the same as from 18 feet" is actually too high.
A styrofoam box will hit terminal velocity after a couple seconds, after which it doesn't matter how long it falls.

Why do you think that rain doesn't punch holes in houses every day?

Terminal velocity. It exists.
For a human, a generous estimate of a height where a person falling would reach terminal velocity can be about 2500 feet (less than half a mile.)
For a styrofoam box with poor aerodynamics, it'll be even less because of increased air resistance from the poor aerodynamics. Therefore, dropping it from 18 miles make no difference in terms of force. Dropping it from 18 miles would be equivalent to dropping it from half a mile. (and probably even less.)

remember, it had a cellphone in it

and a camera, plus, the balloon came down with it, according to the article.

It didn't until this post. The balloon won't probably do much more damage than the box.
Not sure about the electronics, though.

I lol'd.
I actually want to try this

Also, the camera is VERY VERY light weight, it adds just 0.001kg weight to the styrofoam box, hell the styrofoam box probably weights more than the camera, plus being inside of the box would somewhat inherit the poor aerodynamics. Not sure what model of cellphone they used, though. But the way I see it this could probably be way cheaper in El Salvador, due to competitios you can buy cheap prepaid cellphones at $5 USD and you get $20 of credit to talk.

Sounds like a good passive-aggressive way to get back at the world.

That's pretty cool

I think that has more to do with its fluid properties and the crystallizing nature of clouds. At 1 g/mL, water is pretty dense. If I filled a waterproof styrofoam box with water, it could probably kill someone from a few dozen meters.

As for the other objects, the balloon explodes and thus isn't falling as one piece. Also, it's a freaking balloon, it's also going to have a low terminal velocity.

The phone and camera together doubtfully weigh much more than 200gf, which is just not enough weight to significantly affect the density of the styrofoam box.

It looks like another guy did the same thing about the same time
http://www.mercurynews.com/news/ci_13348792?source=yahooNewsML

http://www.mercurynews.com/portlet/article/html/render_gallery.jsp?articleId=13348792&siteId=568&startImage=1