Melville Intermediate - Paper Hot Air Balloons

This report was written for this blog by Liam and Grace from Room Seven. It describes the steps that they went through to create Tissue Paper Hot Air Balloons and then launch them at school last week.

We made Hot Air Balloons using tissue paper and PVA glue. Step One - cut four large sheets of tissue paper out. Step Two - Cut the corners off. Step Three - Glue the sides together, but careful not to glue the sides together where you cut the corners. Step Four - make sure their are no holes. Step Five - Cut some cardboard into the shape of a square, the size of the hole at the bottom of the hot air balloon. Step Six - Cut out the inside of the cardboard square so there's only 3cm of a border. Step Seven - Glue the border/cardboard square to the bottom of the hot air balloon. Step Eight - Stick another piece of No 8 wire through the side of the cardboard to make a cross/plus sign. Step nine take it out on a cold early morning with no wind or breeze that is a location suitable for launching a balloon. You must have a adult or teacher present. Step Ten: get some Methylated Spirits and Cotton Balls and some more wire. Put some methylated spirits on the wire. Step Eleven - hold the Hot Air Balloon at the top and light the cotton balls. Hold it until you can feel the heat from the inside of the Balloon lift it up then the wind should catch it and it should launch! Here's a video of our classes attempt to lauch them!

(Note, no students were harmed in the launching of these Balloons and it was done under close teacher supervision).