You can easily make a humming (or screaming!) balloon by inserting a small hexnut into a balloon and inflating. You can also try pennies, washers, and anything else you have that is small and semi-round. We have scads of these things at birthday time, hiding small change in some and nuts in the others so the kids pop them to get their treasures. Some kids will figure out a way to test which balloons are which without popping… which is what we’re going to do right now.
Please login or register to read the rest of this content.
If you put handful of marbles in the balloon you can actually generate static electricity
Take a look at the video to see an example of a hex nut. A nut designed to fit a quarter inch bolt will work well.
What is hexnut
It’s more likely that the hexnut is a bit sharp and made a small tear in the balloon. Maybe file it down on the edges and try again?
I tried it again. My humming balloon got to a high frequency I think, and the balloon instantly popped again.
I spun a hexnut in my balloon that was bigger than the one you used in the video and it popped. Is that because I hit the natural frequency of my balloon?
-Rob’s kids
Wow – cool! Do you know why it popped? If you did it again, would it pop the balloon again? What if you try a penny?
I did it with a marble and popped the balloon.
I used a huge hex nut, and it worked really well! Thank you so much!
The nut zooms around inside the balloon due to something called centripetal force, which is the inward force on the nut that causes it to move in a circle. Since the nut has 6 sides, when the flat edge hits the side of the balloon, it makes the nut bounce a little and vibrate inside the balloon, making the humming sound. When you use a coin, it rubs against the balloon a little and stretches it a tiny bit which makes it again vibrate and make a sound. All sound is are molecules vibrating. The vibration starts with the balloon and nut.
What can you write more about this in relationship to frequency and sound? They think it’s cool, but I can’t really think of anything pertinent to discuss with them beyond “It makes a sound. Perhaps the sound is loud because the vibration is somehow amplified by the size/shape/material of the balloon?”
Oops – I meant washers. I didn’t get all of my washers to work either, but there are a couple that did. Since the guys at the hardware store know me well (I go in there with a lot of crazy ideas…), I just went in with a package of balloons and did the experiment right in the store and bought the ones that worked.
Nuts or washers? Because I was able to get the nut to work.
Euell
Some nuts are harder to get a sound out of than others. Try again with a more inflated balloon (blow it up more before tying it off) and see if that helps. Don’t blow it too tight, or it will pop with the weight of the washer! Sounds like you got a result to be proud of!
Hi I’m Wendy’s son (Euell),
I could not get a coin or washer to work, but I could get a nut to work because of the bumps hitting the side of the balloon.
I am wondering If I just couldn’t get it to the natural frequency or what, but I did make the same sound as yours did on the video (with the hex nut).
What I did find pretty cool was using a square nut (rather than a hex) to make lower sounds while wiqqling the balloon at the same speed. The reason being, is because there are less bumps on the square nut, so it hits the balloon less times thus making a lower frequency and lower sound.
Can’t wait to try this for our Friday cooped homeschool science class! Thanks for all the tips, mamas!
Thanks for the magnet tip we will amaze our friends ….
Amazing !
awesome!
It might be too heavy… but try it and let me know how it works!
will a dice work ? 🙂
thats really cool!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
My children tried this today. We used smaller, thinner balloons. My girls put up to three hex nuts inside to see if it made a difference. It did sound louder. One of my girls got a magnet and things became exciting. As soon as she put the magnet near the hex nut, while the balloon was inflated, it popped! Even more exciting was to find the nut stuck to the magnet! Now we have a magic show.
Look like our server had a hiccup. Go ahead and try again.
Hi,
I have now tried Internet Explorer 8, Chrome, and Firefox. This video does not come up…some of the other videos on the page do.