‘Great American Solar Eclipse’ prompts livestream from Oak Park Rocketry

The sun was eclipsed by the moon in the U.S. Monday, Aug. 21, with degrees of coverage varying across the continent. This “Great American Solar Eclipse” was the first total solar eclipse to be visible in the U.S. since 1979.

Students observed a partial eclipse in Oak Park from 9:06 a.m. to 11:43 a.m., with a maximum of 62.5 percent of the sun being veiled at 10:20 a.m. In response to this event, schools in the district organized special activities in order to safely study and experience the eclipse.

The Oak Park Rocket Team traveled to Nebraska to observe the eclipse and participate in the Global Space Balloon Challenge Monday. Superintendent Dr. Tony Knight and eight Oak Park students hosted and livestreamed a Solar Eclipse “program,” which included a weather balloon launch at 9:15 a.m. as well as the totality of the eclipse at 11:02 a.m.

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The balloon carried cameras and electronic data collection devices to 100,000 feet, but the camera froze at an altitude of 60,000 feet.

“We are planning on sharing all of our data that the computer recorded from our balloon flight with teachers across the district. When people are learning science and engineering, they’re [oftentimes] asking how can this be applied to real life,” senior and rocket team president Aviv Maish said. “We want to provide a real life data set to students and teachers so that they can apply what they are learning in class to a real life problem.”

Director of Technology Enoch Kwok enabled classes to watch the eclipse on a SMART Board or projector rather than individual student mobile devices. This allowed the district to conserve its internet bandwidth.

“We don’t want to saturate the network with too many simultaneous video streams, which would degrade performance for everyone,” Kwok wrote to the Talon.

Through a live chat on the stream, viewers were able to communicate with the rocket team as they watched the broadcast. Classes were asked to make at least one comment in the chat in order to track viewership.

“Please be patient when ‘chatting’ with the rocket team,” Kwok wrote. “There may be a delay between what you see on the screen, and therefore your questions, and what is happening in real life.”

In order to ensure student safety, the district asked students to not bring eclipse glasses to school.

“It is impossible for us to determine that they are safe and teachers cannot supervise children to ensure they are using them correctly,” Knight wrote to the Talon.