Photographs by and courtesy of Winston Yeung

Rebecca and Kimberly Yeung built this 15' Prospector Ranger canoe from a Bear Mountain Boats kit. Widgeon Creek, here, is where the canoe made its first camping trip. The creek is 35 river miles inland, yet not above the reach of the tides.

" We’re just two sisters who love science.” That’s how Seattleites Rebecca and Kimberly Yeung describe themselves. In 2015 they decided to get a glimpse of the Earth from the edge of space and sent a weather balloon up from the flatlands of Eastern Washington to an altitude of 78,000′ (14.8 miles). Two GoPro cameras recorded the ascent to the point where the expanding balloon burst and the parachute controlled the descent back to Earth. The sisters gathered data along the way with temperature sensors to detect the point between the troposphere and the stratosphere where the temperature rises rather than drops with an increase in altitude. A flight computer with GPS tracked the flight and included a beacon so they could recover their craft and its instruments from its landing in a cow pasture 52 miles from the launch. The video of their flight has been viewed over 370,000 times on YouTube, and Rebecca and Kimberly were written up in Geekwire’s technology news website and the Washington Post. They have spoken at the Gates Foundation and were invited to the White House to present their work to President Barack Obama. At the time, Rebecca was 11 years old and Kimberly was 9.

Kimberly did not perform a Māori warrior’s haka before applying a coat of varnish, but she brought a fierce enthusiasm to every step of the canoe project.

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