DIY Balloon Powered Cars You Can Make For Science Lesson

This roundup is all about Balloon cars and making them. Not only do you get the thrill of engineering and developing the toy you get to play with it afterwards. This activity has so many opportunities for educational homeschool learning. STEAM is represented in all of these DIY tutorials. I have included different styles of Balloon race cars to give parents the flexibility of using the supplies they have on hand at home.

Science Sparks has a version of the popular Lego car that is powered by a Balloon here. Frugal fun 4 Boys also has a lego version, this car is a simpler design so more suited to younger engineers.

This one by Tots to Teens uses recycled materials making it the easiest one to source the supplies for followed by this one which uses a Juice Box and bottletops. For a recycled water bottle tanker you will need this tutorial by pbskids.org

I love the design of this Race car, actually, it’s more like a drag car but you will need old CD’s does anyone still have those in the house? This tutorial is a video and uses card board and milk lids a very simple design but has the same concept.Vroom Vroom with this simple box style car.

Don’t have the items? You can purchase ready to go Balloon Car kits too.

The Science behind it all –

A balloon-powered car is pushed forward by air escaping from a balloon. As the balloon fills with air, it adds more potential or stored energy. As the air flows from the balloon, the energy changes to kinetic energy or the energy of motion. Vehicles are powered by the escaping air from a balloon teach children Newton’s third law of motion. Minimize the drag and reduce weight to make the car go faster. Try running your car on different surfaces for speed too.

This video shows you the science, make your car and watch it here.

Here are some video tutorials on making your own Balloon Car Too

https://youtu.be/dR2C1GGJ-9o

You can pair this STEAM or Science activity with some story books too.

Race Car Children Book

If I built a Car

Race Car Dreams

Check out our Pinterest boards for all the latest DIY craft finds as well as hand curated boards with a focus on Children, children at play and learning activities.

I guess I’m on a bit of a double knitting tear these days. Just the other day I shared some double knitting potholder patterns, and if you’re ready for a more complex double knitting pattern, I would love to recommend this one to you.

The Puppet Master Scarf from Katharina Kuntz is a long double knit scarf with a variety of Muppet characters on it. I see Kermit and Ms. Piggy, of course, as well as Fozzie Bear, Gonzo, Beaker, Rowlf the Dog, Rizzo the Rat and Sam Eagle to name a few. The scarf is densely packed with characters who are different colors on each side.

They’re also potentially different colors from each other, which is shown in the sample here. There are charts in the pattern that show you how to work the whole scarf in two colors or use multiple colors for the different characters.

As shown the scarf uses 20 colors of fingering weight yarn. You’ll need about 656 yards/600 meters of each if you use two colors, and a range for the different characters if you do them all in different colors, but only a couple of them take more than 50 yards. You could definitely use leftovers from other projects on this one.

The finished scarf is about 6.4 inches/16.3 cm wide and 72.4 inches or 184 cm long.

It would definitely be a labor of love but this looks like such a fun project and I’m sure you would get a lot of attention from knitters and non-knitters alike when you wear it!

While this project looks a lot more complicated than those pot holders I just shared, the skills are the same. You just really need to pay attention to the charts to make sure you’re making your characters look how they are supposed to. There are also photos and links to video tutorials to help you along the way.

You can grab a copy of the pattern on Ravelry.

[Photo: Katharina Kuntz]

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