BLADE is the quickest, most tangible way for students to gain industry experience. Since 2019, every academic year, each team of students will undergo a year-long design competition against their peers and follow a simplified and hands-on design process to achieve a high-altitude balloon (HAB) mission of their choosing. The winning team(s) will launch, collect data, and recover their BalloonSat from the HAB launch. The experience gained during BLADE allows members to be technically and programmatically prepared for Bronco Space’s main CubeSat projects and acts as a stepping stone and pipeline for future leadership positions in industry, Bronco Space, and other engineering projects at Cal Poly Pomona.