How to Make a Hot Air Balloon

Choosing a design Your group must design a color scheme. You can have stripes, patchwork, or whatever you choose.

Gores This is a gore pattern. A gore is the vertical strip that makes the balloon. Your balloon will have 10 gores, each made of four pieces of tissue paper.

What Will My Group Need? Glue sticks Scissors 20 sheets tissue paper 20 large paper clips Gore Pattern (But not all at the same time)

Building a Gore For two gores: You need four pieces of tissue paper. Glue the pieces together long edge to long edge. Overlap about 1/2 inch and glue. Make sure you don’t miss any spots. Smooth the sheets together.

Building a Gore When you have glued four sheets of paper together, you have enough for two gores, side by side. All together, you will make 5 strips of four tissue papers. You will cut out all the gores at once. To prepare for this, fold this strip in half, hot dog style.

Stacking Strips When you have glued and folded all 5 strips, pile them up carefully. On one side, you should see a stack of five folds. On the other side, you should see a stack of 10 sheets.

Keeping the Stack Together Carefully paper clip the tissues together to keep them from slipping. Put a paper clip about every 8 inches.

Lay the Gore Pattern on the Stack.

Begin to Cut Carefully cut along the edges of the gore pattern. As you cut, move paper clips from the edges of the sheets of paper to the edges of the gore. When finished, remove most paper clips, but keep the stacks together and return the gore pattern to your teacher.

Scraps! Don’t throw your large scraps away. You may need to use them for patching holes, and you will need them for the top. You can put them in the scrap box. Small scraps should be put in the recycling bin.

Piecing the Gores Together You should now have a stack of 10 gores Take the top nine gores and carefully slide them so that the very bottom gore sticks out about one inch.

Folding the Gores Fold the bottom gore up about 1/2 inch, starting from the center and working up and down.

Gluing Gores Together Glue along the gore on the small side of the fold. Slip the gore that is right on top of the folded gore into the fold. Be sure that only one gore gets glued into the fold. Press down to attach and smooth.

Double Folding Fold over the fold you already made and glue and press. Repeat the folding and gluing for all the gores, going from one side of the balloon to the other for each one (you are making an accordian fold).

The Last Gore When you have finished gluing all the way from gore 10 to gore 1, you have to attach the first gore to the last one. This is done the same way as all the other gores. Be sure that you move gores 2 through 8 out of the way, so you don’t accidentally glue them.

The Top When finished, the top will consist of several points all coming together. Trim off any points that stick up. Make a circle out of your scraps big enough to fit over the top. See your teacher for a pattern. Glue the edges of the circle onto the top.

The skirt Measure the circumference of the skirt (the bottom of the balloon). Cut a piece of wallboard tape that is a few inches longer than the circumference. The tape is already folded. Use a glue stick to glue along one side of the fold.

Finishing the skirt Glue the glued half of the tape to the inside of the skirt. Fold the other half over the outer side of the skirt. Overlap the ends and glue or staple.

Check for Leaks First look for leaks on every seam (a seam is anywhere that two papers meet). Fix any leaks you see. Fix any holes by patching with a small scrap of paper. Test the balloon by gathering it over a blow dryer. Do not let the blow dryer’s intake get blocked.

If there are no leaks, you are ready to launch!