Buncombe County Government, NC At Home with the Library, 17 Aug 2020

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From YouTube: At Home with the Library - It's A Science Thing! Episode #2 Bonus: Vehicle Making Demonstration

Description

Learn how to make the vehicles used in our last video!

Ms. Jen is from the Leicester Branch Library

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All three of the vehicles that I've made with balloons- um I've done this with the balloon first and it makes things a lot easier, a balloon! When you look at the balloon, there's the main part that's going to blow up and then there's the part that you put your mouth on to blow it up and balloons.

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Have this sort of rolled up end to it that makes kind of like a bump out and when you're trying to secure the balloon around a straw that causes a problem and every one of the three vehicles that we're gonna make uses a straw.

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So we're going to take scissors and we're going to cut that part off just towards the very edge of it, so that this thing that little it's just a little ring. We don't want that, but we want this. What we're going to do is we're going to take a straw I use for purposes of it being visible, more visible for you to see because it's colored, I do use electric tape because it's just more it's flexible and it makes a better seal around the straw.

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So, whether you use a fat straw or a skinny straw, we use a fat straw just for showing this. You put it around the straw.

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I put the straw into the beginning of the balloon there just so that there's enough hanging over maybe about that much I'm going to take the tape, try to make the balloon pretty tight. You might have to fold the balloon a little bit over to make it nice and tight and then you're going to tape all along that edge.

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So it's going to be something like this folding it over to make it tight. So there's no gaps because then the air would come out right.

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There are no gaps in this and just to be sure we could put another piece.

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Why not this sort of smoothly.

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Adheres to the straw, scotch tape is a little bit, um it's not as flexible, and I don't know how tight it would be or whether or not it would um eventually poke up after a while. This stuff stays pretty secure down there. So there now it's on and.

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There's no no gaps because of it because it blew up the balloon. Okay, so for all of these, my suggestion would be to cut the end of the balloon off before attaching the balloon to the.

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Straw, okay, so now that you know how to attach a balloon to a straw as tightly as you can by cutting the end of the balloon off, I'm going to show you some of the vehicles that I made we'll start with vehicles that have wheels and roll and I'll show you um the ones that I made. I made.

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I made this one out of a paper clip box, we'll talk about the base of the of the or the body of the car. You can make it just about out of anything that you find around the house, the lighter the better, probably because it's less mass, I have to push with the balloon.

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These are all balloon powered, so you can look around your house and see what you can find this one is paper clip box and this one is a scotch tape box and this one was a vanilla or, I think, an abs, an extract, abstract, extract box that that little bottle went in. um You could also use a cute tip box or whatever I got here, ballpoint pen box. This could be a little tricky. It's it's long. So I'm not sure how many wheels you would want to use for something like this.

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I mean it's not heavy, but it is long it's a different shape. Perhaps it could be more like a buff and then you could also use something like a sponge. If you wanted to. This is one of those magic eraser sponges, so um that could work.

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Some different.

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Options: let's use the q-tip box for our demonstration, so once you've picked out the body of your car you're going to want to have to you're going to want to look for wheels, it will need to roll now, for my the wheels that I used on these cars, they are all bottle cap wheels.

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This car was lego wheels. There is lego wheels that I can put on the thing with wheels is you're. Gonna need four if you're making a car- um and they have, they don't have the colors might happen to match, because I had four of the same color, but they do not have to match any color. They do need to match in size. However, or else your vehicle won't ride smoothly, so different colored bottle caps can still match what you want to do is test it.

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These are soda bottle, caps that I've collected and if I line them up whoops, if I line them up they're the same size, so that'll work, okay, they can roll at the same um at the same rate or rotate at the same rate. If it was something like this, you would have a problem. They are not the same size. Okay, so you're gonna find four caps bottle caps that are the same size.

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Now there are options on how to connect wheels to the base of your car. This one, the way that I did it. If you can see that is I took them. I made holes in the middle of each wheel and then I stuck a tack in that hole to attach it to the box, so it has four separate little axles or hubs in the middle of each wheel. Each wheel moves separately. I can move one one way and one the other way with my hands.

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If I wanted to okay, that is separate wheels or you can do it where two wheels are on one axle, so two wheels move together: okay, that's a that's a a car with axles and an axle is like this, this um dowel or like a rod that goes through something and then the two wheels attach on either side. So basically I used here. This is a receipt roller that we have here at work. It's hollow goes all the way through, so I put the dowel through it and then I glued the two.

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um The two bottle caps on either end and then I glued the um receipt roller to the box so that the wheels can spin. If I taped the the dowel directly onto the box to be frozen, it would not spin. It needs to have the ability to spin, so you could decide in your mind.

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Would you like it to be separate wheels that move each on its own or wheels that have an axle and two wheels go at once, once you've decided that, then we proceed with figuring out how to make the wheels attach for this one. This one does have a hole in the middle and and putting a hole in the center of a bottle. Cap can be a little tricky.

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I do have some tips, though, first of all you're going to need some cardboard um and I double layered this, because you're going to put a nail through this, you do not want to nail into the table right and you also want a little a little cushion to do it on now. The important part about putting a hole in the middle of the bottle cap is getting it centered.

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It may not seem like that much of a big deal, but it really actually, if you don't get it centered, I did one that's actually off center to show you what might happen. If you do not get the hole in the center of the wheel, it will not. It will not um spin evenly it. It spins bumpy, bumpity bumpity bumpy bumpy. You see it does not spin smoothly because it is not in the center. So what you're going to want to do?

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Sometimes, if you take a bottle cap- and you hold it up to the light- the company or the manufacturer of the bottle kind of hat and leaves a little dot in the center, for whatever reason it's there in the center and you could use that as your guide, and that is the best way if you find one like that, if not you'll just have to sort of use your own eyes to determine what you think the center is.

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When I, when I get the center or what I think is the center, I make a mark on it, because that helps me keep the nail right on that dot. So I have a mark in the center and then what I can do is take a nail, and this is to do um adult supervision right. You're gonna take a nail and do I have a skinny nail yeah.

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I do I'm going to start with a skinny nail, it's just easier to make it go through the plastic, so you're going to hold it right in the center of that dot that you made and without getting your hands you're going to tap a little hole through it. Okay. Now, if the hole is tight, it's not going to spin on that axle.

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It's not going to spin, so you want to make the hole even bigger. So I started with a skinny nail and now I'm going to move up to one, that's a little bit fatter and then go right on top of that little hole and bang in a fatter nail.

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So the battery now goes through and then I take it and I wiggle it wiggle it wiggle it around to stretch out that hole and now and now it's a pretty big hole right there, so you can easily put a nail through there or you can easily put a tack through there and it will roll it will move.

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You know because.

B

The hole is bigger.

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It's not going to get stuck stuck because the hole is too snug, so there's the hole in the center. Then you take your box and this is going to be the q tip box. I'm going to use and you're going to take something. I used a tack. I suppose it could be a nail and you are going to stick it right into the cardboard box. Remember the box is empty, you've emptied the box out, then there's your wheel going round and round.

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Okay, so you're gonna do this four times and that's an easy way to make a car with separate wheels. What you do, then, is you get your balloon? That's attached to a straw that I showed you before and you take that and you tape it to the top of your car. So you can.

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Blow it up and has a motor okay, so that is separate wheels if you want to do wheels that are together on an axle, it's a little trickier, but it actually, I think, rides smoother.

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You are going to want a couple of things for this one. I used. I used a wooden rod for the center. I do not have a saw or wooden rod to show you, so I'm going to make it out of something different, I'm going to make it using a straw which might be something you have at home anyways. This is these. Has this? These are skinny straws, the kind that are bendy.

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I cut segments out that are the same size and then I glue gunned them into the center of these two wheels. Again, you have to determine where the center is, that part's very important.

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What what you can do, which is easier and hot glue, requires an adult around okay, you are going to take the hot glue and if I have a straw here to show you do, I have a straw hold up for one moment, I get a straw.

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Okay, you're going to take the straw. This is the bendy part, so you're going to get rid of the bendy part you're going to cut it as long as you think you want the axle to be. Maybe something like that.

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Get rid of the bendy part, then you're going to take your wheel and instead of trying to do something like put hot glue on the end of the straw. Put the hot glue in the very center of the bottle cap make a little tiny pile right in the center of glue.

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Okay, then you're going to take very carefully the axle and stick it right there in that center spot and hold it now, it's hot, the straw does melt a little bit, but just keep holding it there and then eventually, when it cools off, it will be attached and you will have two of these because then what you're gonna do is put a wheel on the other ends.

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But before you do that, you need to make yourself a this is the axle I call it an axle holder if I took this and let me move this off. If I took this box and glued the axle onto the box, it would not roll because it's glued it needs to have something for this to go into that. Let allows it to roll this, I'm calling it the axle holder does get glued onto the box.

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Okay. What I use as an axle holder is this is a skinny straw, and this is a fat straw. I cut a segment of a fat straw. This is it right here I cut a piece off a little little shorter than the one that's um going to be the axle and you put the bigger straw over the little straw.

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So what I am going to do is do that for one of them and then and then show you an example of how we're going to make this work. So it's on there I'm going to make sure that axle holder is on before I put on this second tire.

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So here we go. I'm going to put a blob of glue on in the middle of this, um the middle of this bottle cap when I'm putting when I'm hold when I'm putting this down in the center to glue it in. I have to hold on to this um axle holder, because we don't want this to get stuck in the glue. This needs to be free, moving, I'm putting my blob in there. I think I might need another glue stick here. We go I'm putting a blob of glue in the center of this bottle cap.

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Okay, here's my blob, I'm going to hold the axle holder with my hand and take the end of the axle itself, which is the skinny straw and put it right in the center of the wheel and I'm going to hold it there until it dries, which might take a minute. So I might end up turning off the camera, so I don't waste the battery.

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Same idea, so these are dry. I held this up. The um I held the axle covers away from the glue, so they both spin. Okay, one thing that I came upon a little problem, but I can fix it, um but it's a good thing to remember, because I didn't one of them. One of them is wider than the other, because well just turned out to be that way.

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One of them is a little not wide enough. It is rubbing. Can you hear that so that so it is not going to it's going to have friction and that's going to prevent it from running smoothly.

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It's touching on this one on this one, it's free to go! Okay, so I'm going to change my box. So at first you don't succeed. Try again I'm going to take another box. This is a staples box and I'm going to empty it out. So remember to ask before you do stuff before you go around your house emptying boxes. Okay, this box is a little skinnier than the q-tip box, so I think it might be. um It might serve our purposes a little bit better.

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So I'm going to use staple box; instead, we are going to end up turning that into our car, so we need to now attach the axle cover. I'm going to take hot glue again for these things you can use regular glue. It just would take a long time to dry and it may not dry as strongly it might not um adhere as strongly. So I do recommend a glue gun.

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As long as there is an adult helping you, so I think this is hot enough. What I'm going to do is, I think, I'm going to position them before, so I think I'm going to have one there and one there pretty evenly spaced, I'm going to take the glue gun and I'm going to make a line right where I want that axle cover to be.

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We don't want to touch the wheels themselves onto this glue because that will freeze the wheels up. We need the wheels to roll, so loading up a bunch of glue in a line there.

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Then I'm going to take this and very carefully put the axle cover right on top.

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And let it sit and.

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Dry, the wheels are spinning, so they are not getting stuck in the glow, which is very important. So that's that one and try to make it pretty straight so that the car will stay in a straight track. I'm going to do the same thing for this second one. I don't know. If you can see this. Hopefully you can I'm going to make a straight line of glue right across.

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And I'm going to put the axle cover right on top of that line of glue just like this now.

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One of the reasons why I do it this way, instead of going through the box, if you were to you, wouldn't need the axle cover if you were to, if you were to make a hole that went right through the box, if you made a hole here and a hole here and put the dowel through or the axle through, you would not need an axle cover, but it's very hard to make holes on either side and line it up.

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It's not an easy thing to do so. I avoid doing that by using the axle cover method instead. Okay, so when this dries give it a little bit longer, it will roll and then we can put the balloon on top. While this is drying.

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Actually, I will show you this is just this is just um that box and I just hot glue gun um lego wheels on and it goes and afterwards I could pull the lego wheels off and take off the hot glue, because it's very easy to peel it off and I won't have ruined my legos. I can still use the legos in my lego collection and these run very smoothly.

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These run with an axle that goes through the lego, brick, but they can, but it's loose enough, that they can. um They can spin separately. At least. I think that's true well in order to figure that out for sure I would have to take one of these wheels off and I don't want to ruin the lego, so it could, I suppose, be the other way too.

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Okay, so this is, I think, probably dry. Now.

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And it rolls a little warpy, but it does roll and then what you would do next, as the last thing on your car would be, you would take your balloon on a straw and you would put it right in the center of the car leave enough space so that the knot so that there's a straw a little bit of straw hanging off. So you can put your mouth on there, so you can blow it up, okay and then you are going to attach it again. I use electrical tape.

B

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And put it right in the center leaving room for you to blow it up.

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There we go, let's give it a roll. Let's move these out of the way. Let's see if I am blowing this up and the balloon is here and the air is going to come out here, which way do you think the car is going to go?

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All right here we go.

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One two three go went that way: try it again.

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Ready set got to get it straight.

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Didn't go very well, it's on. It's actually.

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Also, on top of this felt, which might be holding it down, it's also the wheels are a little, not centered, so you can see if they're not exactly centered there, it's a little warpy warp, so it so it doesn't roll as well, but it still rolls.

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I think, if it wasn't on this um with the balloon, it would roll better well.

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Why don't I give it.

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A try here we go, I'm gonna take off this piece of felt goodbye felt all right. Let's give it a try.

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Ready set, go well speed demon, um so that is how you can make different um cars out of boxes and bottle caps that you find around the house. Next, I'm going to show you how you can make a vehicle that goes in.

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Okay, so now we're gonna move on to boats.

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This is the boat that I had made and showed earlier. The boat in the pool outside this boat was actually made out of the bottom of this almond breeze container. I just cut the bottom off I'll show you it was like this. I cut the bottom off and then covered it with tape. Now I wouldn't use this end well, unless I had that cap which I lost, so it has a hole. I couldn't use that as a boat um and also this was cut with an x-acto knife, so with huge, huge adult supervision messages.

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Okay, um a lot of this will require using um a blade of some kind. It could be scissors, but a lot of times it's going to be an exacto knife, which is what I did to get this off. Okay, I use this because almond breeze is a liquid and so it hold. This can hold liquid if it holds liquid it'll be a good um material for a boat.

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You look around your house again. Ask first, but look around your house. Maybe there's some other things that you might be able to find that could be a boat. This was um this was a package for some for something I don't remember what it would make a cool boat. It is. It is this kind of thin plastic.

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I can imagine that being a boat, um this is a take a takeout container or a like a microwave meal container that could be a boat all right. uh What else do we have? That could be a boat? Oh, I have just this cap this cap to something could be a boat or more like a raft right, but it could be. It could move by a balloon, so you can use lots of different things. You don't want it to be too heavy. Remember because it's just a balloon moving.

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It could be a big balloon, but- and that's one thing you're going to experiment with is is: is the mass or the weight of the of the boat makes a difference? um If you want to experiment with which boats go fastest? This is a bottle here. um You could use the bottom of this bottle. I was going to actually just cut this to show you that so here is where an adult is needed to cut the bottom of something off all right.

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And I would not even have the adult entirely do it, they don't wash you, but they don't do it. Okay, we don't want anybody getting hurt.

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Okay, so now the bottle is a juice bottle, so we know what holds liquid right there.

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And like for the last little bit, I'm going to use squares like this.

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All right, so that's the bottom of a juice container. This could be a boat okay. One thing that we need to keep in mind with the boats is that you will need to make a hole through the boat um in some instances, maybe maybe not entirely.

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One this would be very hard to make a hole through because it's actually quite thick this I made a hole through because it was, it was cardboard. Basically, it was waterproof cardboard, so I was able to make a hole pretty easily through this. um This one.

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I think you could probably put the straw on the outside. Actually, when I think about it, this straw goes through and comes out the bottom. This one, I suppose, could just go like that right and be a boat.

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So what we use for the um balloon and for the motor of the boat is a bendy straw, okay, and why the reason why it's bendy is because it needs to either point in one direction or the other, because it has to let the boat it needs to um have the boat go in the opposite direction. Remember the um equal and opposite from before. When we were explaining newton's laws, every action has an equal and opposite reaction. So it's coming out there.

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So then the boat's going to go moving, so it does need to go under the boat and stick out at an angle, and if we used a straight straw that would just go down below and if, if it's going through the boat and only facing down, where is the boat going to go? If it goes down like this, I mean it doesn't. Have it's not strong enough to push it out of the water, but it's certainly not going to go anywhere. It's just going to stay there we may maybe it will spin.

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I don't know, that's something to experiment with, but if the straights draw it's not going to move very far okay, so it needs to be a bendy straw and you can have it bend either way for this one. What I would do is I would take some electric tape, which is um waterproof.

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I think, for the most part or duct tape, um scotch tape will not work that will disintegrate in the water and put.

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The straw here on the front or the back, whichever way you want it to be: okay, like that and then you're going to put the balloon on the top so that when you're blowing it up you're going to blow it up like this, the balloon is going to get bigger, you're going to hold the balloon and then put it in the water. Let the balloon go and then like that. Okay, that's just a way to do it without having to go through the boat.

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This one went through the boat and when you do that, when you do make things go through the boat, you are making a hole, and so you need to you need to make that a tight seal and one of the ways that you can make the seal tight. I did use glue hot glue around it to keep it in place, but I also used this tacky stuff.

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That is something that people use to put posters on walls and things without damaging the paint of the wall. It looks like clay, but it's stretchy, so it is it's different than clay. It's like, I call it ticky tack.

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It's this kind of stuff, and this stuff, you put- you- can put around the straw around the places where the straw meets or goes through. Something put this stuff all around that part of the straw and push it in and then that'll make a tight seal so that air won't escape, because if this air escapes here, it's not going to all come concentrated out there, okay. So this is where I blow this up.

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Again, the balloon is tight to the straw. I would put this in the water and when I let it go, oh do I have anything to show when I let it go. The air is coming out here.

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Let's do that again see if you can see the air.

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Let's see, can you see here you see the air? If I, let's see.

B

Try that again.

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Now you gotta, remember you gotta pinch the balloon before you put before when you putting it in the water pinch the balloon, so that the air is not coming out until you want it to come out, so you put it in the water and then let's see, will this move and wiggle. So you can see that the air is moving.

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So there is air coming out, and so that will be your boat. So with this one you could decide. I don't know how easy it would be to make a hole in the middle of this. It could be. um Actually I could try it. I could do it the way that I did the bottle cap right and take a hammer and a nail, a little nail to start and then make a hole in the center.

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B

Right and make a bigger hole and then.

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Now it has to be big enough for the straw to go through. That is definitely not going to happen with just the nails. So what I would do, let me bang that down a little bit more.

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So this is the batter nail. I'm gonna wiggle it around wiggle, wiggle, wiggle, okay, there's a little hole, but it's not big enough to put a straw through. I might take, then some scissors stick the scissors in that little hole and go round and round until it is wide enough to put a straw through okay. So then, let me put it the right way. The straw goes through like this.

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It bends it bends and then I would take this ticky tack. Stuff, put it all around where the straw is going through.

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There and here okay, so so that there are no leaks, I'm not doing it very well, but right now, but I'll do it better later, so that there are no leaks in the crack where you made the hole. So it looks like that. Okay, this is where you're gonna put the balloon.

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This is how you're gonna blow the balloon up: you're gonna, hold it and then put this in the water and let it go and there you have a boat, and this is going through the boat. Okay, some plastics are easier than others. This one will probably be easy to go through. If I wanted to this, one is something that I think I got mushrooms in from the store.

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First right now, mushrooms, that's gonna, say strawberries, but um I think you could make a hole through that pretty easily okay, um I wouldn't use. I wouldn't use a sponge for a boat because, what's gonna happen, sponges suck up water and let them you know so you're.

B

Not going to want to use a sponge for.

A

A boat okay, but so that is a basic idea of how you would make a boat that runs with balloon as a motor. Okay, now we'll do one last vehicle.

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Okay, so here we are um from.

B

The last vehicle segment.

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And this is the rocket it gets propelled um by the balloon. The balloon is its motor or um engine. uh I won't tell you too much about this, because we went over it before something to remember when you're doing this is when you're, attaching the.

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Balloon to the straw you're going to want to keep the balloon inflated. Okay, I said that before because.

B

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It when it's not inflated is really difficult and it usually ends up tearing the balloon. Okay, so I have it like this and the edge the air is coming out there so, which way? Is it going to go? It's going to go equal and opposite it's going to go that way at the same rate that it's go, that the air is coming out.

A

Okay, something to keep in mind or some things to remember.

B

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Is smooth, it is fishing line. You probably can't see it, it's almost invisible, but the kind of string you use is important. Okay, this is thread. This is yarn and it does have.

B

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Bit of um threads sticking off of it, so it's not quite as smooth so it could slow the straw down. Something you want to remember to do is.

B

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The straw on the string: well, then, let me get one so I can show you.

A

This so you're going to take the string to whatever string you decide to use and you're going to tie it between two objects. Okay, um I tied this end on what you would do is tie one end then take the other end and you are going to thread your straw or thread the string right through your straw. Okay, this is a back straw, so it's a lot easier to thread the string through I'm using the yarn.

A

So hopefully you can see the yarn so now this now the straw is on the string, and now I tie okay, you.

B

Don't want to say.

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Make an effort of time between two objects and then realizing what I forgot to put this strong rubbing up against the threads.

B

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And it won't slide as fast.

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This is the batter straw. Okay, it just moves just goes further. So so you so you take your string, you put you put it through a straw, whichever kind of straw you decide to use and then you're going to tie it now, you want.

B

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Think about what you're tying it to the two things that I'm tying them to the string ends too, are relatively the same size. So it's straight okay, when it shoots across the string. If you were to do something and try to do two different size things, it will have, it will slant. Now that could be part of your experiment. It could be experimenting whether or not it goes up at the same rate. Does it slow down as it goes up? Does it go faster as it goes down on the slant? That's something to experiment with?

A

Okay, if you wanted to, but if you want.

B

It to be straight across, you have.

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To choose two objects that are the same height.

B

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And then you want to tie it tight. This is tight. Pretty tight. Can you hear it? This is tight. Okay, if I did not do it tight and it was kind of sagging.

A

This is not going to go very well because it's going to get stuck on the sag, that's going to cause friction, so what is important is whatever two objects, whether or not they're the same height. That's not as important as the tightness of this string. It needs to be tight.

A

You can almost hear it like a guitar string so that this shoots, okay, it doesn't get stuck on a snag, as this is um sagging glove. Okay, so things to experiment with you can also experiment with the weight of the rocket that you create. This has nothing connected to it, but just the balloon. This has a bunch of stuff because I wanted to make it look cool, but it was heavy and it did not move as well. So things to think about the type of string you use.

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What materials you make your rocket out of the size of the balloon makes a difference. The angle of the string might make a difference: okay, so that is how to make a balloon propelled rocket. Another way to make um a propelled rocket is not to have it on a string at all. If you were to take the balloon and just attach something to it and have it get propelled into into the air, you can do that too.

A

It's just that the balloon would go all over the place and um it's hard for me to catch on a camera, but that is another way to make something um repelled by a balloon is just attaching it to the balloon and letting the balloon go. Okay, thank you for joining me for this edition of its size thing.