"look forward to further attempts to push the envelope."
I see what you did there.
But did these various school students celebrate with SPB-designed, dialysis-inducing cocktails afterward?
A bunch of US 5th graders* yesterday came close to breaking the Guinness World Record for the highest-altitude paper plane launch, which currently stands at a dizzying 35,043m. The pupils from Spring Grove Elementary in Illinois hit 34,586m (113,471ft) with their balloon-lofted vehicle, and later lamented that "another 100 to …
Interestingly, Spring Grove Elementary appears to be planning a "Project Blackbird" balloon/drone launch from Spaceport America. A 23 April post on Facebook says: "Project Blackbird is postponed pending FAA approval"
https://www.facebook.com/RichmondSpring-Grove-Stemc-1220017744679768/?fref=nf
... have to give up all hope on the human race after all, if people this age can get interested in starting, working on and actually completing something this 'science-y' and find it fun.
On the other hand, many of the adults (at least, the ones not called Musk) seem to be beyond that same hope :-(.
Simple.
Attach a balloon to a 1kg weight, put weight on scales.
Fill balloon until weight measurement reads 850g and you have 150g of helium in the balloon* :)
*I'm almost certain this is incorrect, but it sounds good. If you don't believe me, ask the mice.
"rote learning obscure grammar rules."
Obscure because "actually, we've just made some of them up". (That one about the exclamation marks, for example.)
It's quite ingenious actually. You see, the SATs are for measuring the school's performance, not the kids, and so you need some way around the fact that some kids are smarter than others. So ... you make sure that the syllabus for your exam contains certain things that simply won't be learned, even (or especially!) by the brightest students, except at school. Stuff that isn't true fits the bill beautifully.