Eagles Nest home to new weather station

BHS student gives back to the community through his senior project

Posted 12/12/18

A cold wind whipped across the athletic fields at Barrington High School, but Oskar Schnippering seemed immune to the chill. 

Instead, the high school senior focused his attention squarely …

This item is available in full to subscribers.

Please log in to continue

Log in

Register to post events


If you'd like to post an event to our calendar, you can create a free account by clicking here.

Note that free accounts do not have access to our subscriber-only content.

Day pass subscribers

Are you a day pass subscriber who needs to log in? Click here to continue.


Eagles Nest home to new weather station

BHS student gives back to the community through his senior project

Posted

A cold wind whipped across the athletic fields at Barrington High School, but Oskar Schnippering seemed immune to the chill. 

Instead, the high school senior focused his attention squarely on the high-tech weather station bolted to the roof of the Eagles Nest press box. 

Oskar and his mentor, fellow Barrington resident Greg Greenberg, installed the weather station about a month ago as part of Oskar's senior project.

Mr. Greenberg stood near Oskar, checked his phone and quickly relayed the information that was being recorded by the weather station.

"Twenty one miles per hour," he said, citing the wind speed gusts.

Mr. Greenberg's company — he is the vice president of global sales for Onset Computer Corporation — donated the weather station to the Barrington School Department. He said his company produces data logging instrumentation, including state-of-the-art weather stations that are used all over the world.

More than five weeks ago, Oskar and Mr. Greenberg approached local school officials with an offer to erect a weather station atop the Eagles Nest.

"Our project has no commercial or marketing purpose," wrote Oskar in a recent email, "we just want to give back to the community and give something for everyone to use and enjoy."

Information from the weather station can be accessed by anyone. A variety of measurements — everything from temperature to barometric pressure to rainfall amounts — is recorded electronically every minute by the station and fed to a website. Oskar has set the site to refresh the recorded data every 10 minutes. 

So far, the data has been used mostly for weather reports given during the Barrington High School morning news show, but Oskar and Mr. Greenberg believe the applications could prove beneficial for student projects and other research purposes.

Project roots

Oskar Schnippering has always been interested in electronics and when it came time to build a senior project, he decided to approach his friend's father with a proposal. 

Mr. Greenberg was happy to help, and signed on as Oskar's mentor. 

"I think of it more as a partnership," Oskar added. 

As part of the senior project, Oskar spent time interning at Onset, which is located in Bourne, Mass. The internship offered Oskar a chance to learn how to produce and sell electronics, and the added bonus of installing a weather station atop the Eagles Nest.

Oskar said he fully intends on maintaining the weather station throughout his entire senior year and even after he graduates from Barrington High School. 

"I really wanted to leave a legacy here," he said. 

Oskar wanted to credit a number of people who helped him with this project. In addition to his mentor, Oskar was also aided by school facilities workers. He also wanted to thank school officials including Superintendent Michael Messore and Director of Administration and Finance Doug Fiore, and Barrington High School Principal Joe Hurley.

Oskar said he plans to study engineering at the University of Rhode Island next year. 

2024 by East Bay Media Group

Barrington · Bristol · East Providence · Little Compton · Portsmouth · Tiverton · Warren · Westport
Meet our staff
Jim McGaw

A lifelong Portsmouth resident, Jim graduated from Portsmouth High School in 1982 and earned a journalism degree from the University of Rhode Island in 1986. He's worked two different stints at East Bay Newspapers, for a total of 18 years with the company so far. When not running all over town bringing you the news from Portsmouth, Jim listens to lots and lots and lots of music, watches obscure silent films from the '20s and usually has three books going at once. He also loves to cook crazy New Orleans dishes for his wife of 25 years, Michelle, and their two sons, Jake and Max.