HOT AIR BALLOON #2

FLY FLY FLY,  NUMBER TWO. 

DESIGNING:

  With our failed hot air balloon from our first attempt, we were given the same mission to design another plan and hopefully the plan will succeed this time. We were put into a new group, new team. We combined different ideas and plans and try to produce a newer and better structure. 

   I thought designing a hot air balloon came with many different obstacles and difficulties. From our last attempt of the designing, we were not very certain of the problem for our designs and there was no groups who succeeded in the mission. Thus. coming up with a new design brought up many problems and doubts. We thought of using different materials, such as wires to replace the straws. Hoping it will reduce the weight. We used the exact same bag as last time. We used 10 candles. However, we did not only use the wires, we also added some straws to stablize the candles on the structure. We thought since the weight should be lighter, and adding enough candles we should be able to lift the bag up. 

Results: 

Our expectations... failed.

Unfortunately... our hot air balloon did not fly like we thought it would... :( 

It took several minutes to heat up the big bag and all it did was to be able to float on the ground. 

I think even if we replaced the straws with the wires, the structure was still too heavy... and perhaps the bag was still too big and took up too much volume. If this mission was given to me again, I would really reduce the size of the bag, and perhaps replace the wires with strings instead. Thus, the structure will be less weighty. 

Despite all the downfalls and the failures of this mission, I still had fun designing and thinking of something I had never done before. It was really fun trying to design something that can fly. It was definitely a nice experience working with the groups, sharing different ideas, relate each other's thoughts and knowledge. Our hot air balloon was still pretty awesome! :)