For years I'd heard that you could make a hot air balloon from a garbage bag. When I finally tried it, I found that--as with so much of life--the "devil's in the details." Here's what I learned, as an instructional video in 6 parts, with the help of some of my students.
Part 1, Introduction, covers history of hot air balloons in Asia and France, modern day ballooning, and some basis terms.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dyIylJ1N7AU
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Part 2, How it Flies, presents some amazing facts that allow hot air balloons to fly, woven into cool videos of people-carrying balloons preparing for take off. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mS2tXwn4BlE
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Part 3, Fuel and Safety, shows why we think volitile fuels are a bad idea (we use candles) and I make the case that hot air balloons, education and kids (with adult supervision) all go together. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jcr-0Iajw4M
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Part 4, What You Need to build a hot air balloon: aluminum foil, plastic drinking straws, birthday candles. And the only tricky part is finding a trash can liner that's thin enough, but we'll show you where to look and how very thin plastic is measured. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uM7WOHg-ZXU
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Part 5, Build and Fly gives the construction details for keeping the botom of the balloon open and holding the candles and we make the case for flying indoors. You do not have to weigh anything, but we do on the video just to stay conscious of keeping it light http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=76m_99oucBQ
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Part 6, Using Smaller Bags bags is more of a challenge than using larger ones. We'll show you why and present some tips for making them work. Plus a (green screen) ride in a hot air balloon for the student volunteer presenters http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5MuZ0QPuyt8
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I put a lot of work into making these instructional videos. It's encouraging to me to know that people are putting the information to work and I improve the instructions when people point out when something is not clear ( I answer specific technical questions as best I can, too). Furthermore, hundreds of people have sent me innovations that have made all the projects on http://www.sciencetoymaker.org/ better. So, consider sending me feedback about how the hot air balloon project went for you. Contact
This external link is to an artist named Joshua Allen Harris who makes surreal inflated creatures from thin plastic bags. I doubt it could be applied to a small hot air balloon (surface area, see Part 6), but the shear brillaince of the art is worth a look http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PH6xCT2aTSo&feature=channel_page
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