Balloon molecules: balloon art for geeks

September 15th, 2009

Little brother with multi-color buckyball

You probably know balloon art: done by magicians or clowns, on the street or at children’s parties. Some german guys have taken it to the next level. They thought visualizing the structure of complex molecules would be an excellent job for the famous balloon.

In my final year at high school we made some balloon molecules, and our chemistry teacher absolutely loved it. So here are some hints if you want to do it too:

  • Use a balloon-pump! You have to blow up so many balloons, you’ll get completely exhausted when not using a pump.
  • Get enough balloons of the same color! Check out the photos, our first model looked more like a rainbow than an actual buckyball.
  • Learn the knots and techniques and practice them! We had a lot of balloons popping because we didn’t know how to do balloon art exactly. There are excellent guidelines on how to do the knots and techniques on the site of the professionals.
  • Have lots of fun!!

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