So, I had this brain pop one day about blasting off with something in the lab! I mean, kids always predict something will explode or blast off so I figured we should try something.

Years ago I tried balloon rocket ships that ran along a string, but we made the string horizontal.

What would happen if we turned that string vertical??

It’s Balloon Rockets!  And there are a few things you should know!

First, I had to decide how the rockets would be propelled and thought I should just stick with balloons. They don’t cost much and they aren’t messy. Kids would attach the balloon to the string by threading it through a straw. We ran into all kinds of problems.

Students used their materials to design a rocket and then had to determine a way to attach the balloon to the rocket. The first problem they ran into was that the rocket turned out to be too small for the blown up balloon. So, they redesigned!

The next problem was that after attaching the balloon to the string the kids had to blow the balloon up. This was hard because the balloon was at the bottom of the string and they were laying on the floor to do this! They learned to slide the rocket up the string, blow up the balloon, and then push the device back to the floor to be released.

Well, of course, since they are kids the more the better, right? If one balloon works great, then two should work spectacularly! This turned out not to be the case. Generally, it seemed that the balloons were interfering with each other. It was also hard to get the rocket to stay in place with two giant balloons attached to it. And the balloons were giant because the more air you blow into them, the better they work. This, also, turned out not to be true.