Balloon Kebab – Virtual Science Space
Pointy Stick + Full Balloon = ??
What happens when you put a pointy stick into a fully inflated balloon? Does it pop? You will be VERY surprised by some super simple and super fun science we explore in our next at-home science experiment…balloon kebab! All you need is a metal or wooden stick that is pointy and a few balloons of course…preferably one you would normally use to make kebabs on the BBQ.
Supplies:
- 2-3 balloons of any shape or size
- pointy stick, preferably one used for BBQing
- Dishwashing soap (optional)
Be sure to quickly gather your supplies and join in with David as he shows you your next favourite party trick!
FACEBOOK LIVE Q+A RECORDING
[EXPERIMENT VIDEO SCRIPT]
[DAVID] Hi everyone, I’m David, I’m one of the Experience Officers here at Science Space and today we’re gonna be making a balloon kebab. Now you don’t need too many ingredients for this experiment, all you need is a balloon, preferably a darker colour is a little bit better- for the science i’ll show you a little bit later on- and a skewer. And sometimes people might use a bit of dishwashing detergent for this experiment as well, I don’t always use that but maybe we can have a bit of a try and see how it goes. So the first step in our experiment is you need to inflate your balloon, so we’re gonna be blowing air out of my mouth and putting it inside the balloon. So big breaths everybody! And you wanna have it about the size of a rockmelon, that’s a good size, maybe a little less air out of that one. That’s pretty good. And tie it off. If you find tying a balloon a little bit tricky, grab an adult to help you and I’m sure they’ll be able to help you out. Now, what we’re gonna be doing is making a kebab. When you have a kebab at home, you might maybe have some fruit or some meat on it, but today we’re gonna be skewering a balloon onto our stick. No what do you think is gonna happen if I put the stick in the side of our balloon? It pops! Let’s quickly make another one, so big breath everybody. That’s a pretty good size. It’s really important to have a think about where you place the stick when you’re making a balloon kebab. If you look super closely when you hold it up in the light, you can see how it’s a bit of a darker patch there. And where the knot is, it’s a lot darker there as well. That’s because the rubber on the top and the bottom of the balloon is not stretched as much. On the side here as you inflate a balloon it’s pushing on all the sides and stretching it quite thin, but it’s a lot thicker here and here. So what you’re gonna do now is get your stick and carefully place it through near the knot. We’re in, we’re not popping.
[OFF CAMERA] Oooh!
[DAVID] And sometimes people might like to lubricate their stick a little bit with some dishwashing detergent just to make it slide through a bit better but i’m just gonna have a bit of a go today without it. Then, can you see here how it’s poking through the top there. If I give a bit of a twist and a careful push, it’s so close. We’re through! You can see I have actually put the stick all the way through the balloon without it popping. How fantastic is that? That’s a balloon kebab. If I pull out the stick what do you think is gonna happen? Let’s give it a go. I can feel a bit of air coming out, can you see the little tiny hole there? The air is coming out very slowly, we call this deflating, but it didn’t pop. That’s pretty cool. So you can try this at home, and as i said before all you need is a balloon and a kebab stick. Would love to see how you guys go at home, so feel free to like and share this post, and leave a photo below of what you’ve created at home as well. Thanks everybody, catch you next time! Bye!
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VIRTUAL SCIENCE SPACE
Virtual Science Space is our offering to the community during these challenging times. We are aiming to help all aspiring scientists, engineers and STEM lovers alike to continue their STEM learning at home.
Using our amazing STEM Team made up of real-life scientists, science students and aspiring educators to we have videoed awesome experiments, fantastic demos (that come directly out of our LIVE science shows) and put together some maker challenges for you and your children to do together at home.
As the COVD-19 situation is evolving at a rapid speed, we have done our best to quickly create these materials. As such, we have not edited ANY of these videos, and we ask that you please be understanding. All videos will have closed captioning available via our YouTube channel.
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