Water Balloon Challenge

Abstract

In this project, we worked to create a structure that would protect water balloons dropped from a series of heights. The objective was to drop a balloon from the highest height possible without it popping, and to do so, we were given materials such as straws, coffee stirrers, tape, extra empty balloons, rubber bands, paper, nuts, and bolts. There were also some constraints, which required the apparatus to fit in a 10 inch x 10 inch x 10 inch cube (with expanding after drop being allowed), as well as how the device must be released (without tossing) and cannot hit any structure on the way down. In addition to this, the device had to have unobstructed viewing windows of 1.3 inch diameters on the North and South hemispheres as well as the East and West hemispheres. There were many steps involved in this challenge, including brainstorming, designing, building, testing, documenting, and redesigning. This challenge proved to really be a challenge, as our device struggled to protect the water balloon from drop heights higher than 2 feet.