ANTIC Interview 457 - Atari at the Science Fair: Lisa Link Melville, Weather Prediction

Atari at the Science Fair: Lisa Link Melville, Weather Prediction

The Herald Times newspaper, April 17 1984: "March 24 proved to be an exciting day for several area students participating in the South Central Indiana Regional Science Fair which was held in Bloomington. Lisa Link, an Edgewood High School junior, and Maxwell Brothers, a Bloomington North senior, took top honors in the advanced division. Programming an Atari 800 computer to forecast the weather was Link's project. The computer's entire 48K memory system was needed to develop the long and complicated program which predicts Bloomington's weather with an 88 percent rate of accuracy. Twelve variables are programmed into the computer which then forecasts the weather using such variables including temperature, cloud cover, rainfall, wind speed and barometric pressure. Link, though not presently enrolled in any science classes at Edgewood, went on to take not only top honors in the Regional Science Fair but also to win certificates of recognition from NASA and the Army as well as second place for best project by the Navy." An article a month later in The Newark Advocate said: "during a 17-day period in February and March, Miss Link said she accurately forecast the weather on 15 days." Her project garnered several awards: second place in her division from the National Oceanic Atmospheric Association (which included a prize of $100), an Air Force honorable mention, and honorable mention from the American Meteorological Society. My interview with Lisa Link Melville took place on May 31 2026. Video version of this interview: https://youtu.be/nqJV_--YVkM