In seventh grade science, students typically make a chocolate cake diorama of the Earth's crust. Lauren Rojas sent her Hello Kitty doll into space.
This amazing 12-year-old from Antioch, California got the idea when she saw a TV commercial where a balloon fitted with a camera was launched into the sky. She decided she wanted to do the same for a science fair project, except with a Hello Kitty doll her dad bought her during a business trip in Japan.
Lauren's science teacher, Annette Cluck of Cornerstone Christian School, couldn't believe it at first, according to ABCNews.com. "I said, 'Wow, are you serious?' I was kind of blown away because usually students don't do something that extravagant," said Cluck, in the understatement of the week.
Lauren and her father put GoPro video cameras and a rocket-shaped vessel for the Hello Kitty doll on a platform attached to a weather balloon. "We spent about one month planning and executing it," said Rod Rojas, Lauren's father. "We used a company called High Altitude Science in Colorado to get the equipment, the weather balloon and flight computer."
According to Rod Rojas, the balloon reached an altitude of 93,625 feet, or 17.73 miles, before busting due to the thin air. Hello Kitty landed in a tree 47 miles from the launch site. As if this feat in itself weren't enough to win the science fair, Lauren included an officially science-fair-y angle in the project: The balloon launch gathered data about air pressure and temperature at high altitudes.
Oh, and they produced this great video of their project and Hello Kitty's adventure:
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