Hot Air Balloon 2

Good thing this time we were allowed to use our own materials to build the hot air balloon.

After discussion with our group we had decided to build a smaller sized hot air balloon. The materials are as follows: one small, lightweight garbage bag, one piece of cardboard, some floss strings (only string we could find), two pieces of fuzzy, bendable wires, and four candles.

First, we bent the two fuzzy wires to form a circle and taped the ends together. Next we taped the wire circle to the plastic bag so it would retain its shape. 

Our idea was to make a "basket" similar to a real hot air balloon's. To make this we poked holes in the cardboard to fit in the four candles. Then we taped one end of the floss strings to the cardboard corners and the other end to the bag. This is our finished product.

It kind of looks like a jellyfish.

Anyway we thought our design was going to work because it was lightweight. However, when we lit the candles we realized the strings were too close to the candles. In the following picture you can see that some strings are burnt along the edges. If the strings were burnt, then our basket would entirely detach itself from the balloon. Also, the distance from the candles to the bag was still relatively large. We are positive that if we move up the candles a bit more while having sturdier strings (think yarn) that are farther from the candles the hot air balloon would've worked. We won't really know unless we build another one, but I think Mr. Chung has had enough with all these failures. Anyway, other groups' hot air balloons failed also so I guess we didn't do that bad. :D