The BHALF competition is open to teams of four or more students in grades 9 to 12 from high schools and community groups throughout the United States, District of Columbia, and U.S. territories.Balloonsat being launched

Teams will develop a flight experiment or technology demonstration and submit a proposal for consideration by a panel of NASA scientists and engineers. The panel will select eight teams to design and construct their project for competition. The eight projects will be sent to the near space environment of the stratosphere, or nearly 100,000 feet above the earth, by several NASA weather balloon launches in Northeastern, Ohio.

A wide variety of topics may be pursued in this competition, including science and weather observations, remote sensing and image processing.

The top four teams will visit NASA Glenn Research Center (GRC) in Cleveland, Ohio, to participate in “Flight Days,” a three-day launch event to release, conduct and recover their experiments and participate in informative tours and presentations. Travel, room and board expenses for up to four students and one adult advisor from each team will be provided for the four-night stay.

New for 2011, four additional teams will be selected to receive funding to build their Flight Experiment but rather than attending Flight Days, they will participate remotely from their hometowns while NASA scientists and engineers launch and recover their payloads.

The goal of this program is to stimulate students' interest in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM), and provide them with an opportunity to participate in a flight mission.