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Discussion for Balloon task.

Is there a set size the balloon has to be?

questionguy wrote:Is there a set size the balloon has to be?

As long as it's easily recognizable as a balloon, you're fine.

The rules say that the balloon must rise only due to it's buoyancy but it never states what environmental conditions you must contend with. In the old balloon race event there were numerous cases where air currents in the room caused balloons that were actually buoyant to either simply fail to rise or, in some cases, to rise and then reverse direction and eventually settle back to the ground. Anyone have any idea what will happen if the A/C turns on while this event is going on and someone's balloon gets blown in such a way that it doesn't rise even though it is clearly buoyant?

This was covered in another post. Balloon Race is not Mission Possible; Good Engineering (a whole lot of reasons here) means you won't have a barely-lifting balloon, risking 250+ points, just to add 5g and 50 points in an iffy situation.

In the tournaments I've run, he quick-release, fast-rising balloons with small signs on micro weight string work. I've even seen someone WD40'ing the string (careful, it dissolves latex). Heavy signs on party ribbon that create a slow-moving balloon situation end up getting hung up on even tiny amounts of friction and wander.

Bad design is hardly the fault of the rule writers. Or the AC. And last I checked, it's January. The dash from the equipment truck to teh school entrance in 10 degree weather is a far bigger problem.

Does anyone have a reliable method of releasing the balloon? For regionals, we set our sand timer up to pour onto the raised side of the lever, and wedged the balloon beneath the other end. Of course, the lever wasn't in the right spot, so we had to run the string through the device and it kept getting stuck due to friction.

I'm thinking a mousetrap might do the trick.

Primate wrote:Does anyone have a reliable method of releasing the balloon? For regionals, we set our sand timer up to pour onto the raised side of the lever, and wedged the balloon beneath the other end. Of course, the lever wasn't in the right spot, so we had to run the string through the device and it kept getting stuck due to friction.

I'm thinking a mousetrap might do the trick.

Mousetrap that lifts a mass sitting on the string of the balloon works perfectly

questionguy wrote:

Primate wrote:Does anyone have a reliable method of releasing the balloon? For regionals, we set our sand timer up to pour onto the raised side of the lever, and wedged the balloon beneath the other end. Of course, the lever wasn't in the right spot, so we had to run the string through the device and it kept getting stuck due to friction.

I'm thinking a mousetrap might do the trick.

Mousetrap that lifts a mass sitting on the string of the balloon works perfectly

Apparently, you can even wedge the string between the two pieces of metal when the trap is set--then all you have to do is spring the trap.

Primate wrote:

questionguy wrote:

Primate wrote:Does anyone have a reliable method of releasing the balloon? For regionals, we set our sand timer up to pour onto the raised side of the lever, and wedged the balloon beneath the other end. Of course, the lever wasn't in the right spot, so we had to run the string through the device and it kept getting stuck due to friction.

I'm thinking a mousetrap might do the trick.

Mousetrap that lifts a mass sitting on the string of the balloon works perfectly

Apparently, you can even wedge the string between the two pieces of metal when the trap is set--then all you have to do is spring the trap.

Would that still count as having the sign touch the bottom of the device?

You would wedge the string between the parts of the mousetrap and leave plenty of slack in the string so the sign can sit on the bottom of the device on one side of the mousetrap.