Students in Brooke Rooney’s aviation class could have been singing “Up, up and away my beautiful, my beautiful balloon” recently as they launched their homemade hot air balloons in the STEM gym at the Life Ready Center.
Teams of students spent several days cutting their balloons out of brightly-colored tissue paper, gluing the layers together and checking for leaks. Once the balloons were assembled, students used a fan to blow air into the balloons to inflate them. Several students found small holes — places where air could leak out — that had to be reglued.
It took a team of five boys more than two days to assemble a balloon.
Justin Rivera, a junior at Lawton High School, said working with the tissue paper was the hardest part.
“It just rips. You have to make nice with it. After that, it’s just following the instructions,” he said.
The purpose of the exercise was to teach students the properties of air and how it works with different machines in aviation, Rooney said.
“This one was just seeing that hot air is less dense than cold air, and that if you trap it, it will rise,” Rooney said.
Rivera, who said he was taking his first STEM class, said he initially took aviation because it fit into his schedule, but discovered the class is “really fun. We get to do more of our own stuff and less like she’s talking to you.”
When the group completed their balloon, they took it into the hall, set up a box fan and blew air into it to see if it would inflate. That’s when they found numerous holes where air could leak out.
Tristan Morrison, a junior at Lawton High School, suggested making another balloon and putting it over the existing one in order to seal all the holes. Instead, while the balloon was inflated, a student crawled inside with a glue stick to make repairs.
“It looks really cool. It looks really cool inside. I didn’t think it was really going to work. I didn’t think it was going to be this big,” Morrison said as he surveyed the inflated balloon.
Mackenzie Zenns, Lawton High School, who enjoys craft projects, created her balloon in one day.
“How they were made just amazes me,” she said. “It was pretty easy to make the balloon. The measurements were a bit iffy, but I eyeballed it. It only took a day to make. I like to be very goal-oriented.”
Zenns said she was looking forward to launch day.
“I want to see how far the balloon makes it. I want to see my work soar and go higher than the others,” Zenns said. “Hopefully I will receive my balloon back and I will give it to my sister. I will basically make it a kite so she can play with it.”
Zenns said she would like to join the Air Force and then become a commercial pilot, though she has never actually flown.
“Doing virtual flying is as good as I am going to get,” she said.
Morrison also said he is considering a career in the Air Force.
“I think flying planes is what I want to do when I get older,” he said. He said he hopes the aviation class helps him become familiar with the systems pilots use to learn to fly.
“I hope to learn to fly an actual plane,” he said. “I hope to learn what those buttons are for.”
How did he think his balloon would do on launch day?
“I’m expecting it to go up a little bit. I will be surprised if it flies. I think there might be some small holes that air can get out of, but just a couple,” he said.
Then it was time for the students to send up their beautiful balloons. Students carefully gathered them up and carried them to the gym where Rooney set up a camping propane canister with a shield over it to direct hot air into the balloons.
The balloon made by the five boys was positioned over the canister and inflated, then it was released to make its maiden voyage. The balloon took off, touching the top of the ceiling before descending.
“I didn’t think it was going to hit the ceiling,” Rivera said. “It’s because of the aerodynamic shape.”
“It was really exciting,” Morrison said. “It formed like a big light bulb. It had holes in the top and I thought the air was going to blow out. It’s all about the shapes you cut it into. That’s why ours made it all the way to the top. I had a lot of doubts because there were a lot of bubbles. I thought it would hit the duct and fall down.”
Zenns did not have as much success on her first launch. Her balloon went up and over the duct before falling down.
“I think I needed to do a little tweaking to make sure the top was double glued,” she said. “I made a few mistakes. I made a mistake of not gluing them properly. I thought I had the top sealed. It’s a children’s kite now. I’m hoping my little sister will like it.”
Zenns made some repairs and relaunched.
“Make sure to always double-check you sealed the entrances or it will be the death of you,” she said after a more successful second launch.
What was the best part?
“Seeing it fly the second time,” she said.
Rooney thought the balloon project was a beautiful success.
“I think learning through failure and struggling and learning through exploration and pursuing the answers to your own questions is the most effective way to learn, and you get to play while you’re at it, which makes it even better,” she said. “I think the best part of the lesson was hearing in the last few days that they really didn’t think it was going to work as well as it did. Or, you know, there’s just no way that it’s going to go all the way to the ceiling. And so for that first one to really hit the ceiling was great.”
Even though the students didn’t get to ride in their beautiful balloons, they did fly up and up.