A high school student has set out to obtain data concerning the Gulf Stream by designing a free-drifting satellite buoy.

Named after the volleyball from the 2000 movie ‘Cast Away’, ‘Project Wilson’ was launched on August 8th and aims to collect a variety of atmospheric and oceanographic data. This includes data related to barometric pressure, ambient air temperature and water temperature.

Hayden Brophy who is a high school student at Juanita High School in Kirkland, Washington, constructed the buoy. In a project that was took on by Brophy over two years ago, Wilson is made up of a GPS receiver, a satellite modem, an Arduino Pro Trinket microchip and a charger for the battery which is all secured within a watertight case. 

To track the buoy’s location, antennas for GPS are fixed onto the lid of the case.

As of this past weekend (15-16 August), the buoy is now ashore in Fort Lauderdale, Florida according to Brophy and his team – ”We’re keeping our hopes up that Wilson will find a ride out to sea this weekend. In the meantime, we’ll be providing daily updates.”  

You can follow all of the updates regarding Project Wilson here: https://projectwilson2020.wixsite.com/mysite/tracking. Alternatively, you can follow it’s Twitter account: @BuoyWilson.