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A crowd of students huddles around the soccer field and watches in anticipation as hot air slowly fills a balloon.
It begins to rise. Necks crane upward, eyes widen and fingers point as the balloon goes up, up, and away. All eyes squint at it against the bright white sky, when suddenly junior Samia Zuber announces One minute and 11 seconds is the new record!
Students in science teachers Cy Prothro and Richard Shapiros physics classes constructed hot air balloons out of tissue paper and launched them during the first two weeks of February to learn about the concepts of pressure and buoyancy. This is about Archimedes principle of buoyancy and fluids at different densities, Prothro explained. The balloon will float because the hot air inside the balloon will be less dense than the air outside.
As a contest, each class recorded the balloons flight times to see which one floated the longest in the air. The criteria for the best balloon will depend on the greatest height and duration of flight. One balloon flew from the basketball courts to the soccer field, Shapiro said. It was flying up there for years, he said laughing.
WENDY TYLER
Up, up and away! Physics teacher Cy Prothro and senior Luis Wong prepare a hot air balloon for lift-off as part of a project for Prothro and Richard Shapiro's physics classes. |
While some balloons soared high up toward the clouds, others barely lifted a few feet off the ground. Several balloons were patched up with tape, and just a few small leaks would cause the balloon to deflate and sink. The tissue paper is really thin and it would easily rip when you glue the sides, so sometimes thered be a lot of holes that you have to patch, junior Manon Fisher said.
Students worked in groups of four to construct the hot air balloons, each using large sheets of tissue paper glued together in five panels to form a spherical shape. A circular piece of paper closed the top of the balloon and a hole was left at the bottom for inflation using a camping stove.
Students made other modifications to aid the flight of the balloons. Some have baskets to balance out the weight of the balloon and prevent it from flipping, junior Janay Bazile explained. Additional touches such as tail ribbons were for more decorative purposes, but Shapiro warned students that adding too much mass to the balloons would hold back its flight.
Many students agreed that this experiment was the most enjoyable so far, especially because it encouraged artistic freedom. We decided to put hearts on ours for Valentines Day, senior Arielle Avalos said as she glued together pieces of yellow tissue paper covered in red hearts.
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