Mountain Avenue Elementary students launched a Barbie into the sky. Now their dads are tracking it down
A group of local dads will use GPS coordinates to track down a Barbie they and their children launched into space this past Saturday at Mountain Avenue Elementary to learn a little more about the doll’s journey.
A few Mountain Avenue parents and students launched the same doll into space a few years ago.
“Last time, she made it to the stratosphere. We’re hoping it did the same this time,” said parent Jansen Lashley-Haynes.
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The parents and students launched the Barbie into the sky with a camera and tools to track altitude, temperature, wind speed and its location — something they didn’t do the first time around.
According to the military-grade GPS that went along for the ride, the doll landed in the San Bernardino mountains north of the 15 Freeway, about 90 miles from La Crescenta.
“We’re going to go and find her,” Lashley-Haynes said.
A few years ago, when they launched the Barbie into space for the first time, it landed in a farmer’s field about 60 miles away in Corona.
At the time, the Barbie had a handwritten note attached to it with a $50 reward to return it.
That’s when Lashley-Haynes got the call from the farmer who was so impressed by the project, he declined to take the reward.
The idea for the initial launch came about when Mountain Avenue students, including Lashley-Haynes’ daughter, wanted to take on a new challenge at their science fair.
“The girls said they wanted to do something no one else had done. I said, ‘Sure, I’m not a scientist. [But] we’ll figure it out.’”
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Kelly Corrigan, kelly.corrigan@latimes.com
Twitter: @kellymcorrigan
