Delightful Dirigibles Prototyping

Last weekend I set up a mini tinkering space for the library day and book sale at the Carl-Schurz-Haus, the local German-American cultural center here in Freiburg. Since it was supposed to be a more casual drop-in space I set up ‘roly-poly rollers’ a new activity that I’ve been prototyping that has a low floor and doesn’t require much facilitation so that I could have more time for conversations about my book and our upcoming in-depth workshops.

As part of the festive environment, the team at the Carl-Schurz-Haus had festooned the entire library with bright blue helium-filled balloons. One of the participants in the tinkering space ask if she could attach a balloon to the roller. Not knowing what would happen, I encouraged her to give it a try. This little experiment kicked-off a more than an hour long prototyping session with me and the participants testing out all the ways that the balloons could be used with the rollers.

A first fun exploration was trying to balance the weight and the balloon to make something that floated in between the ceiling and floor. One of the participants attached a basket to a couple of balloons and added and took out little foam pieces until it was just right. This experiment built up a bit of a understanding of the materials that informed later investigations that felt a bit similar to the classic tinkering studio wind tubes or smaller experimental drop zone activity at open make: time.

We attached the balloons to the spinning motors with different lengths of string and arrangements. Sometimes the balloons spun rapidly and other times they slowly rotated. Participants made chains of differently inflated balloons and noticed what happened when the motorized platforms moved them around. This surprising direction really felt like a joint prototyping session and right away I realized that there was something about the combination of materials and phenomenon that necessitated a deeper exploration.

One of the things that we wanted to try but wasn’t possible at the workshop was having the balloons be able to completely lift the motors off the ground. I thought that I could use the tiny pager motors and propellors from the spinning balancing sculptures to give it a try.

I got a tank of helium, some balloons and collected the rest of the materials (coin cell batteries, motors, propellors, ribbon, small washers and paper cups). I also used scissors and masking tape. As I built the first prototypes at home there was a similar feeling of making and testing to what we tried at the library. The slight variations in weight made a big difference and I could tell there was a lot of potential for hard fun making these flying machines. Plus the colorful balloons had the quality of something out of the pixar movie UP making a delightful connection.

The combination of colorful balloons and spinning motors feels very compelling. I’d like to figure out how to adjust the blades (more power?) connectors or ship bodies (add fins?) for more variation in the movements but just creating one of the dirigibles is extremely satisfying.

Beyond figuring out how to add in more variability to the designs, I’d also like to understand better the environmental impact of the activity. It’s one thing to use balloons that are already made for an impromptu experiment but I’ve also read articles about how the limited supply of helium in the world makes uses like party balloons irresponsible. After a bit more research I found out that the quality of helium used for medical purposes is different than the grade used for party balloons making it feel a little better. But I’m interested in trying to be as environmentally friendly as possible with my tinkering experiments so I’d like to learn more and get feedback.

Although it probably wouldn’t work for an “everyday” tinkering activity, I think experimenting with balloon powered flyers would be really fun for a festive event like a big new years party.

I’ll be in Southern California for the holidays this year and would love to find a place to try it out with kids and families a la the “zing into the new year event” at the Amazeum. Let’s see what I can scrape up and meanwhile I’ll keep experimenting with these elements and posting about the latest iterations.