High Altitude Balloon (HAB) projects consist of a payload that reports position, a parachute, and a balloon rated to burst at altitudes above 100,000ft. Near space is cold, windy, and almost a vacuum. In these sorts of environments electronics can easily overheat, freeze, or break. After launching a few HAB’s we have learned many lessons and created several guidelines and techniques to better chances of recovery. This talk will cover how to design and analyze hardware and software to survive the harsh conditions of near space. After the talk there will be a small payload high altitude balloon launch as a demo.