Maker dad Ron Fugelseth and his 4-year-old son sent the boy's favorite toy train eighteen miles up into the stratosphere aboard a weather balloon outfitted with an HD camera and salvaged cell phone for GPS. Then he made this lovely video. (Thanks, Kelly Sparks!)

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David Pescovitz is Boing Boing's co-editor/managing partner. He's also a research director at Institute for the Future. On Instagram, he's @pesco.

TAGS: balloons family Kids makers parents

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Skittles sorting machine, version 3

David LaFerriere's sandwich bag art

http://www.flickr.com/photos/stefan_e_jones/ Stefan Jones

That was very cute and cool.

Was the train’s face CGI? It seems too small / simple a toy to do all of those expressions. (And look appropriately sad while starting its fall.)
- http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1391856142 Jonathan David Grindstaff
  
  Every engine on Sodor can make faces since a long time ago DUH!
- Boundegar
  
  That’s no toy. It’s a life form that has infiltrated our world and hidden in plain sight.
  
  Not shown is the tense drama as it manipulates the poor child to bend the father to its will. Its goal: return to space, and its homeworld, where it will be greeted as a hero. The father subverted its plans by neglecting to install proper life-support systems. I was looking forward to the part where the alien’s eyes hemorrhaged in the vacuum of space, but the balloon broke too soon. Now it wants revenge.
http://twitter.com/amanicdroid Dr. Chronobiologist

The falling sequence needs terrified screaming, vomiting, and an unhappy face.

Also, I would now like to see a book mashup “The Little Engine That Fell to Earth”.
Antinous / Moderator

That was so cute that I’m now ovulating.
- rattypilgrim
  
  Antinous, I think you would make a great parent for a 21st century child.
  - Antinous / Moderator
    
    Unfortunately, I would be extremely overprotective. When confronted with a child or small animal, I have a strong urge to neutralize all potential threats in the vicinity.
    - rattypilgrim
      
      It depends what “extremely” means or “neutralize” (not in the C.I.A. sense I hope). Anyway, don’t write it off just yet. Not that people need kids to define themselves. That’s not a healthy way to frame a life.
      - donniebnyc
        
        Speaking as a former parent of small children (they are now 18 and 26), the urge to neutralize any threat to them, in the CIA sense, was very real.
    - http://glitch.tl/ Michael Smith
      
      That just means you are turning into a Pak Protector.
      - Tyler Nichols
        
        But only if the child smelled similar enough to Antinous’ genetic line. If not he’d be driven to exterminate it instead.
franko

that kid has a future in movies – he’s so adorable my teeth hurt. what a great idea, and a great (now & future) gift for his son.
Mitchell Glaser

How unbelievably cool! I wish my dad was that involved with me. Most parents I knew just let the TV raise their kids back in the day.
noah django

awesome video. awesome dad.
- http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1391856142 Jonathan David Grindstaff
  
  The kid was crying the whole time for his toy. :p
rattypilgrim

Long may this father/son, teaching/learning, sharing/daring, experimenting, relationship reign!
connie1946

Cute video. Though the headline should read “Father Comes Up With Concept, Father Comes Up With Idea To Make Video About The Concept, Father Works Up The Specs, Father Builds Apparatus, Father Sends Boy’s Supposed Favorite Train Into Stratosphere, Father Edits Video, Father Posts Video” – it’ll be fun to see the full Pixar workup in 18 months. As it stands the video is in desperate need of a sincere Tom Hanks narration and a rollicking Randy Newman score : )
- http://twitter.com/bradbelltv Brad Bell
  
  This one seems more ‘authentic’ as weird as that sounds. The boy is a little more involved at 12. Plus it’s a bit more educational.
  https://vimeo.com/15091562
http://glitch.tl/ Michael Smith

I hope they asked the Fat Controller first.
- http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1391856142 Jonathan David Grindstaff
  
  The Fat Controller was a little bit cross.
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1391856142 Jonathan David Grindstaff

That’s all good. But you should know, Percy pulls the mail on time. Which if you think about it is probably more important to the residents of Sodor than some space program. I’m sure it made the kids day. Those trains chuff day in and day out.
Vadym Zakrevskyy

i see “x launched in space” videos pop up more often now, good.

my question is: how easy is it to get on good side of FAA (or your country’s fly-or-no-fly agency)…?

It would suck if this kind of activity required a time-prohibitive amount of red tape to cut through.
- http://glitch.tl/ Michael Smith
  
  my question is: how easy is it to get on good side of FAA (or your country’s fly-or-no-fly agency)…?
  
  What they don’t know won’t hurt them.
- Work_Watch_Buy_Repeat
  
  It would suck more if one of these balloons took out an airliner. At some point, the “cute” factor fades out and the “irresponsible” factor comes into view.
  
  The National Weather Service launches weather balloons, but it has procedures to coordinate with Air Traffic Control and to avoid launching into the flight path of an aircraft.
  
  Mr. “Send $RandomObject into the stratosphere” — not so much.
  - PrettyBoyTim
    
    http://www.stratostar.net/faq/
    
    Seems to suggest that as long as you’re launching something fairly small and are not launching projectiles from it (gliders etc), there is nothing to disallow you from launching Things On Weather Balloons.
    
    My guess is that unless you’re letting these things go in front of a busy airport, the chances of having a plane/balloon collision is exceptionally small.
  - silkox
    
    During the launch and recovery sequences, notice the radar reflector between the payload and the balloon. Seems unusually responsible, actually.
  - http://www.facebook.com/people/Stephenson-Billings/100001366922231 Stephenson Billings
    
    A lot of people do this and from the instructions I’ve read online, these folks are doing pretty much doing what many others have done: reclaimed cell phone, extra-large balloon, strong helium (you can see from the tank he has– the stuff they sell at WalMart or use at clown parties isn’t good enough), etc. So anyway, this is happening fairly often and I agree, I’m surprised it’s considered safe.
  - Phil Worthington
    
    He did notify the appropriate authorities 15 mins before launch to ensure nothing would be anywhere near.
5onthe5

Is the cgi train face something you could do at home? Or do you think he sent it for post-production somehwere?
- http://www.jameshoward.us/ James Howard
  
  In the comments on YouTube, the creator says he did the face in AfterEffects.
http://profile.yahoo.com/63XXVPSPJK2BJCTONLJ5WIFUII Lisen

A shared experience the son will newer forget, but perhaps build on
Ipo

For some reason this made my eyes water.
Thanks Dad!
euansmith

Next, impress everyone and send the kid in to space!

Great little video.
http://www.facebook.com/drifteaur Zoltan Varady

Couldn’t the rig have fallen on someone’s head? Or did it have a parachute or something in the way of a recovery device?
- lafave
  
  To the first question, yes. Which is why I guess he launched in a ruralish area. Notice the landing was in a corn field.
- Phil Worthington
  
  If you read the description it describes the 3ft parachute, max weight of 2lbs, and the fact that he used weather/wind prediction to drop it into farm land.
CLamb

Great idea using a balloon. Much easier than building a spiral track 18 miles high.
Tod Booth

Way to make all of us other dads look lame.
http://www.markcrummett.com crummett

The “cool dad” bar keeps getting higher.
http://www.zazzle.com/InfinitudeTortoises* An Infinitude of Tortoises

I’d like to see this same sort of project done using a model weather balloon as payload rather than a toy train.

Father and son send toy train into the stratosphere

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