DIARY

We went in there with little experience of what we were doing.  The initial presentation was interesting and we hoped that we would understand more as we continued.  We split off into our strand groups and began a crash course in the mechanics associated with lifting the balloon.  The equations were difficult to understand and apply.  Working well with the Chemistry strand was essential, as at the end of the day, all our equations used the data that they were providing.

Using the graph from the Chemical strand, we could cross – reference the best temperature that we would need in the balloon.

Now here was the problem, the graph indicated that the necessary temperature needed would require 80 candles.  However, there were unforeseen factors that did not heat the balloon sufficiently.  Firstly, the way the tin candle holder was connected meant that a lot of heat was dissipated into the surroundings and not into the balloon.  We think that the next problem was the lack of air holes.  The idea was that the less air holes, the slower and steadier the candles would burn, but this idea was futile.  It seems that the best option was to try to burn the candles as quickly as possible to raise the temperature in the balloon as quickly as possible.  Unfortunately we didn’t have time to repeat the launch so we couldn’t fix these problems!