What are the coolest payloads you've launched?

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Early 80s, before we had commercial staging units, altimeters, trackers etc.

35mm film camera with shutter control via onboard timer circuitry. Programmable exposure rate (period between exposures) and count of exposures (from 0 to use up the roll). The electronics were self designed DIY with counter and divider chips and wirewrapping.
 
My latest payload consisted of a GPS, barometric pressure sensor, and triple-axis accelerometer, all connected to an Arduino micro that logged the data to an SD card. Plus a Jolly Logic 2 (which I love) as an additional check. It's fascinating to me to study and compare the data streams from different flights. Next I plan to add an Xbee radio for real-time telemetry, and/or work on shrinking it down a bit, as it is currently set up in the ebay of my 4" L1 rocket.
I got most of the components on ebay pretty cheap, so no big loss if something goes horribly wrong.

My 7 year old son, on the other hand, likes to launch figures that he's molded out of Fimo, as well K'nex figures of the Beatles. Some day I'll get back to my plans to build a Yellow Submarine rocket...
 
Launched some mice when I was a kid back in the 60s. After surviving that they became snake food for my pet boa constrictor.
 
Back in the early/mid 60's, it was reasonably common to launch LBP's, Live Biological Payloads. I remember an issue of Model Rocketeer magazine around 1968 or so that had an article on constructing a little photoelectric-triggered data recorder and harness for your white mouse so you could record its respiratory rate as you launched it and hopefully recovered it alive. Pre-PETA days, of course...
 
Not sure if this technically counts as a payload as it was exterior to the rocket. But at the last Tripoli-MN launch, a guy had a rocket with three foam noodles (foam pool toys) that were mounted on the outside of the rocket. He had three pins on the bottom and three pins on the NC to hold the noodles in place. At apogee when the NC separated, the three noodles also separated and floated down to be caught/retrieved by three lucky kids who got to keep them as their prize.
 
So far for me I guess the coolest Payload, if you can call them that, that I have flown has been my Homemade Parasheets.
As far as External Payload, it would be my 808 Cam on the Tan Sam mounted on a Boom to look down at the Thrust.
 
Candy...Filled a nosecone payload bay once with candy and, sent the rocket up to 16K. Got it back and, handed out the *Mach One Plus Space Candy* to all the kids watching that day. :D
 
We put Skittles or TicTac into payload section. Makes a great incentive for kids to find the rocket and a sweet walk back.


-Alex
 
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