Hopkinton High School's Computer Programming class has been recruited to work on an Antarctic Research Project. Back in December, Matthew Lazzara, a research meteorologist and graduate student from the University of Wisconsin - Madison, had visited Hopkinton High School and spoke to the Computer Programming class. He spoke on the work that he does at the Antarctic Meteorological Research Center, Space Science and Engineering Center and what life is like on the "ice". After the visit, Matthew deployed to McMurdo Station, Antarctica on December 27, 1999 and communicated with Hopkinton via the Internet throughout his trip.  Antarctic Lingo Antarctic Projects At the University of Wisconsin/Space Science and Engineering Center there are a couple of Antarctic projects. The two Lazzara is working on are the Automatic Weather Station (AWS) Project and the Antarctic Meterorological Research Center (AMRC). The AWS project is a complete end-to-end project for them - they build, install, repair collect data and do research with the data from about 56 stations around the continent. This year they had a few new stations to put out, several to repair and a few to move. The AMRC is a project were they collect, archive, distribute / provide weather data of all kinds for anyone, especially grantees of the US Antarctica Program. Their keynote item is their Antarctic Composite image. They mosaic, like a puzzle, all of the worlds weather satellites that are available to them over the Antarctica and Southern Ocean. It is used for research as well as forcasting. The AMRC also is working on weather research; they are hoping to learn more about fog around McMurdo Station, where is can get in the way of flight operations. To learn more about these project go here. Programming Class Project At the conclusion of Matthew Lazzara talk he recuited Hopkinton's programming class to write C++ Source Code to analyze data from the 56 Automatic Weather Stations (AWS) that are located all over Antarctica. (Click for map) This was an excellent project. Students used information and programming skills learned in class such as; if - else statements, nested while loops, file input / output, functions and documentation all applied to a real life situation. The AWS collect data every ten minutes. (Link to sample AWS file) Data is set up in table form: Julian Day - Ten Minute Intervals - Temperature in Celsius - Wind Direction - Wind Speed. This is raw data ready to be read and analyzed. Hopkinton High School's programming class wrote C++ Source Code that is now available to researchers. The sample output is for AWS Siple Dome, October 1999. It computes: Temperature - (Click here for code) (Click here for output) Written by: Ben Hogan and Diana Moore Dewpoint - (Click here for code) (Click here for output) Written by: Adam Plumb and Max Indelicato Pressure - (Click here for code) (Click here for output) Written by: Julian Salai and Emily Weckback Wind Chill - (Click here for code) (Click here for output) Written by: Adam Plumb and Max Indelicato Wind Direction - (Click here for code) (Click here for output) Written by: Julian Salai and Emily Weckback Click here for the main source file. To learn more about Antarctica To go back to Hopkinton High School 
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