The gardenBlind flightWhat the box saw

From my Garden to the Stratosphere

How I nearly lost a GPU at 37 km

Matthias Lau · code.talks 2026

The neighbours' balcony

Action cam horizon
Second camera looking down
Datalogger sensors inside and outside
GPS tracker with SIM card
NVIDIA Jetson Nano
Power bank
LoRa radio
AirTag

Onboard
machine learning

optional: federated learning

Three pieces of software

Spaceshipon the Jetson, in the box

LoRa · IP

Houstonground station

WebSocket

Flight Controldashboard

It has to heal itself

Watchdog

Any error → restart everything

spaceship runningError generated.restarting …running

What it sends

Good linkmetrics + images

Slow linkmetrics only

No linkrecord locally

Low powercamera off

Signal check

LoRa packetsa few

IP linknone

Too cold? Or too warm?

Terrace

Freezer

Is this allowed? Yes, with a permit.

To apply

On launch day

Permitaviation authority, 50 €

Landownerconsent

Parachutefor the descent

GPS logkept 6 months

City“no objections”

Insuranceliability

Contact detailson the box

Visibility ≥ 5 kmclouds ≤ 4/8

Never into Hamburg's control zone

Attempt 1

Clouds.
Cancelled.

Attempt 2

Control zone.
Cancelled.

Day before launch · 10:27

OpenWeather: 100 % clouds
Kachelmann: 75 %
Windy: 71 %
Looking outside: blue sky

Signal check

LoRanothing

Tracker appno position

Landingoverdue

G123456#14:00

lat: 53.422052
lon: 10.203512
speed: 614:00

G123456#14:07

…

Plan B

Ask the tracker
by SMS

Found by the AirTag · 14 km from the garden

Did the camera survive the bang?

Final check

Boxfound

Flight datacomplete

GPUsurvived

You

Q&A

Video, slides & more
heureka-labs.de/talks/space-eagle