Learn about how balls bounce with this experiment using a ball you make from water balloons! Try it and let us know how it works.

Supplies:

  • Round balloons
  • Cooking oil
  • Water

Steps:

  1. Oil the outside of one balloon with cooking oil, then push this oiled balloon into a second balloon. This makes a super-strong double-layered balloon.
  2. The fill the inner balloon with water and knot both balloons.
  3. Drop one of you super-strong water balloons onto a smooth surface (outdoors is recommended, just in case it breaks). Watch what happens.
  4. Try it again.

What’s going on? The balloon is round when it’s falling, but it squashes when it hits the ground. Then it springs back into a round shape as it pushes itself up off the floor. Is that what you see? Try it again. Your water balloon bounces like a ball in slow motion, allowing you to see what really happens when a ball bounces against a surface.
Here’s a video of a ball in slow motion (hint: there are lots of these on YouTube). Does it look like your super-strong water balloon?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sVTJNv3-mWk

Source: Exploratopia, 2006: The Exploratorium.