22 Spring / Printemps 2017 The Beginner workshops introduce basic concepts and are designed under the assumption that the participants have never built a circuit or programmed before. These workshops have been adapted for grade 7 classes, through university students, and beyond. For the most part, they start with a high-level description of development tools and then jump right into an example to make an LED blink. There is an unwritten goal for every student to complete the first activity and see the LED blink within the first half hour of the workshop to prove to them that they can do this. The half-hour goal is even more important for high school visits and younger audiences where many participants have preconceived notions of electronics and their strengths that have to be overcome with a positive experience before presenting them with challenging new material. For example, at a workshop held at the UofM with International Baccalaureate grade 10 students from across the province, there was a young lady that spent part of the time on her cellphone (thinking the instructors did not notice) and openly stated that electronics was way outside her interest in biology. However, she was the first to complete the hands- on example, giving her the confidence to get up from her seat to help others, alter her perception of engineering, and leave with a new perspective on her own capabilities. After completing the first example, the breadboards, passive compon- ents, and other peripherals are integrated into subsequent activities. Depending on the length of the workshop, students will be provided with more complex examples that include sending messages in Morse code using an LED, reading an analog sensor, converting readings to engineering units, and printing messages to standard output. Most of the time, the final example introduces students to a rudimentary closed-loop control system where an LED represents a heater that is turned on/off depending on the readings from a thermistor. This requires students to integrate all the elements discussed into a single example that is some- thing they can intuitively understand from their thermostats at home. Over the years, the workshops became more popular, the students involved in the activities transitioned to Young Professionals, and there was a natural opportunity to expand the activities beyond the University of Manitoba In 2010, the Shaftesbury High Altitude Robotics Project (SHARP) launched its first high altitude balloon (HAB) from the Erickson aerodrome in west- ern Manitoba. The balloon reached an altitude of 107,000 feet and travelled more than 200 km before making a parachute landing just 18 kilometres from Shaftesbury High School in Winnipeg. The excitement created by this flight led to five more flights and collaboration with a growing number of schools. In April of 2016 six schools launched HABs from the playing field behind Carman Collegiate. Yearly HAB flights are now coordinated by the Manitoba Association of Physics Teachers (MAPT). Students design and build payloads that have reached altitudes of more than 36 km. To date, fourteen payloads have flown to the stratosphere and all have been recovered. It does help that southern Manitoba is relatively flat and treeless. HAB payloads carry science and engineering experiments as well as video cameras. Students use their electrical skills to build a payload power distribution system. Arduino microcontrollers are a very common component of HAB payloads. MAPT organized an Arduino workshop for school teams (stu- dents and teachers) in March. The University of Manitoba’s depart- ment of Electrical and Computer Engineering and IEEE ran the work- shop. Arduinos are used to log sensor data and control circuits such as the payload release circuit. The Arduino in the payload release circuit receives input from a GPS receiver. At a programmed altitude, the Arduino sends current to a thermal knife which cuts the line between the payload and the balloon. The payload containing experiments and cameras returns to Earth by parachute. Students Shaftesbury High School Workshop By Robert Striemer analyze their data and make presentations and may enter their project in sci- ence fair competitions. Amateur radio beacons inside the payloads are used for real-time tracking. Many students take amateur radio certification courses learning about electronics, transmitters, receivers and antennas. Some stu- dents use their own ham radios to help coordinate the flights. Shaftesbury High School hosted the first Manitoba Schools HAB Symposium in October of 2016. The symposium, sponsored by MAPT, allowed students to demonstrate their work. Their projects were discussed and information was shared in the Proceedings. Collaboration between schools has helped teams improve in all areas from flight theory, launch and tracking operations to experiment and payload design. This year about a dozen Manitoba schools are working on HAB projects. Spring floods permitting, most HABs will take to the air together sometime before the end of June 2017. Glowing softly in the early morning light, a high- altitude balloon and payload are readied for lift-off roughly 250 km upwind of Shaftesbury High School. Robert Striemer has been a public high school physics and science teacher for the past 33 years. Receiving his B.Sc. degree and Certificate in Education from the University of Manitoba, his classroom skills and dedication to students were recognized by a Prime Minister’s Award for Teaching Excellence in 2012. He is a member of the Radio Amateurs of Canada, the Manitoba Repeater Society and the Winnipeg Amateur Radio Club in which he serves as Chief Instructor, delivering amateur radio certification courses to the com- munity including school teachers and their students.