Pupil Sam Sully sent his balloon to the edge of space to take snaps of Monmouth

Sam Sully, 17, spent around two months working on his project SkiPi, a balloon fitted with a GPS tracker, a Raspberry Pi Zero computer, a radio and a camera.

The balloon was watched by Sam's schoolmates, family and physics teacher Dr Dan Jones as it left a field to embark on its two-hour mission to snap Monmouth.

The project, which cost £300, was funded by an Arkwright Scholarship and its results were recorded on Monday May 30.

Sam applied for the engineering scholarship, Arkwright Scholarship, because he wanted to further his skills, which would aid his UCAS application for university.

“It took about an hour to reach 32,000 metres and then another hour to drop back down. it was very exciting looking for it,” said Sam.

“The pictures are beautiful. I’ve already shared them with people and set one as my desktop background. It’s an amazing view from up there. People have reacted with amazement – they are really impressed that it actually worked.”

The camera was programmed to take a snapshot every minute, with the images stored on the miniature Pi Zero computer.

Straight after the launch, Sam and his friends scrambled into action to follow the balloon to its predicted landing site to retrieve the equipment- at the foothills of the Black Mountains.

Assembling the balloon meant that Sam had to learn how to use a soldering iron, as well as making numerous calculations for the balloon's radio.

Luckily, Sam managed to get a weak signal after climbing halfway up a mountain and found SkiPi with just 30 minutes left before the battery died on its tracker.

With £250 of his scholarship left over, he hopes to use his new skills to send another balloon higher than 40,000 metres next year.

He added: “I’ve always been sure I want to do computer science at university, but it’s really delightful to be able to do these sorts of things, taking it further and doing something a little bit different and really fun."