So, here is a little blog post to explain the potential energy and kinetic energy within our experiment.
All of the houses have the potential energy to lift, if enough balloons are added. The problem lies in how many balloons to add. With each balloon we added to a house, the weight of the house was lowered. We had to get the weight to be below 0 for it to actually life. It was actually quite amazing how with the addition of just one more balloon the house would be ascending. We could normally tell when we only needed one more balloon. The house would be hovering above the table, or when we threw it up, the drag would keep it up for a bit before it came down slowly. Once that last balloon was added, the kinetic energy kicked in and up went the balloon. To show the importance of the precise amount of balloons, I will refer to our dojo house. While taking it outside, two of the balloons popped. The house still went up, but so slowly that the wind would get ahold of it and it would simply come back down. Two balloons, they made a huge difference in the acceleration of our house. With 70 balloons the house would go up quickly, and without problem. But with only 68, the house went up significantly slower.
Also, a fun fact I suppose. How many balloon would it take to lift a real house? According to an internet website, a house can weight between 80,000 pounds to 160,000 pounds. To life a house weight 80,000 pounds it would take roughly 12,271,691 balloons.
Yeah...that's a lot of balloons.
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