Hot air balloons Posted April 30, 2005 at 12:00 pm

The 2005 Elementary Science Olympiad was held for elemntary school students in the Auburn/Opelika area. The event is hosted at Auburn University by the College of Sciences and Mathematics. My uncle has organized the Hot Air Balloons event for the past several years and I was in town for the weekend so I got an opportunity to help out with the event.

The premise is simple enough. Teams of up to three kids from each school construct a paper hot air balloon that they bring with them to the event. Each team is given a time window in which to fill the balloon and make any spot repairs or changes they need before they release the balloon. At the end of 15 minutes, the balloons must be released. The balloons are judged on aesthetics, flight time, and maximum altitude achieved.

My job was to time the flight time and filling time, as well as to operate the heat guns providing the buoyancy for the balloons. It turned out to be a more fun than I expected.

Some of the teams did quite well, sending the balloon all the way to the roof and achieving hang times extending for the better part of a minute. On the other hand, there were some teams that didn’t get their balloons off the ground. Fairly large balloons with a traditional shape tended to do the best. Most of the teams waited the full 15 minutes to release their balloons, but a few of the higher ranking teams released early with good success.

All in all, it was a nice break from the norm to complement a nice weekend out of town. I wish all the kids best of luck next year!