Awesome Balloons

Sitting on furniture made of balloons seems like a bad idea – especially if you have something sharp in your pocket. After seeing the work of artist Seungjin Yang, maker Connor Creates was inspired to build a functional stool out of skinny balloons bathed in epoxy resin. While the straight parts were pretty easy to make, the spiral seat was quite the challenge.

Half-Asleep Chris thought it would be fun to put a LEGO rollercoaster into space. So he and his pal Dan designed a custom rollercoaster that could withstand the flight and teamed up with Sent Into Space to launch it into the stratosphere. Once in space, the brave Minifigure astronauts got the thrill ride of their lives.

It doesn’t seem like balloons would be particularly complicated to make, but How It’s Made shows us how creating party balloons requires lots of industrial equipment, including electrically-charged vats of liquid latex, balloon-shaped molds, and spinning brushes to create the openings we blow into.

For the art installation, Colapso in Bilbao, Spain, SpY created this simple yet effective display. Sitting inside a cube, a 10-meter balloon gradually inflated over four days. When the balloon burst, it revealed it was filled with colored smoke. The cloud lingered for only a few seconds but produced the perfect red sphere captured in this slow-motion video.

It’s a June tradition for The Slow Mo Guys to perform stupid antics with a giant water balloon. This time, Dan dove face-first into the thing as Gav captured slow-motion footage of his crash landings. Not only did he shoot from the outside of the balloon, but he also got the camera’s skinny probe lens inside of it for some shots.

Luke Adams Glass offers an extensive selection of miniature glass objects, from tiny cocktails to thumb-sized skulls. These teeny balloon animal dogs are some of our favorites. Not only do they fit in the palm of your hand, but they’re also way more affordable than Jeff Koons’ iconic balloon dog sculptures.

BMX rider Kriss Kyle proves he has balls of steel by performing a series of tricks while 2100 feet in the air. The Red Bull-sponsored stunt features a custom-fabricated mini bike park that hangs from the bottom of a hot air balloon. We can’t believe he did the part where he balances on the outer rail. Catch the behind-the-scenes film here.

World records are broken every day, thanks in no small part to the internet. Drew Builds Stuff and his brother Adam wanted to join the world record club and settled on an archery challenge. The goal: break the record of 38 water balloons burst with a single arrow while following the precise Guinness World Record rules.

Zealous and his pals set out to break the record for the highest paper airplane drop. So they engineered a plane that could handle the weight of a camera and a GPS module, launched it to the edge of space on a balloon, and waited for it to fall back to earth. Naturally, it was much more complicated than they thought it would be.

When it comes to showing the power of small lasers, popping black balloons is one of the most effective demonstrations. With the right kind of reflector system, laser beams can be guided to hit precise targets, so they can pop numerous balloons in sequence like in this satisfying short video using a Wicked Lasers LaserCube.

Farming is a tricky business. When growing a crop like rice, it’s not easy to access the plants to apply nutrients or pesticides. This clever farmer uses a set of large balloons to suspend spray pipes over the plants, minimizing damage and keeping vehicles from getting stuck in the marsh.

We’ve long been fans of artist Glenn Jones’ cheeky illustrations. Here, he envisions a world in which Snoopy and Woodstock are balloon animals. Even their doghouse is inflatable. The playful image is available on various shirts, including tees, tanks, sweatshirts, and hoodies. Now we want to see the rest of the balloon Peanuts.

Over the years, Gav and Dan from The Slow Mo Guys have produced a number of videos which involve doing silly things with giant water balloons. This time, they sandwiched Dan between two of the heavy balloons and then popped them to capture a new perspective on the water-soaked action.

In keeping with their name, the guys from How Ridiculous set up a series of fun and challenging obstacle courses, loaded them with balloons, then competed to see who could pop the most while running, tossing darts, driving go-karts, riding on electric skateboards, and piloting R/C cars.

You’d think a battle between balloons and darts would have an obvious winner. But when you line up a bunch of giant balloons in a row, the dart eventually runs out of energy. How Ridiculous put this to the test – but they first tried popping them with everything from a marshmallow to a volleyball.

As part of a balloon animal kingdom, a multi-national team of 34 artists and students from the Netherlands, Turkey, and Spain created this giant sculpture of a dinosaur from 150,000 biodegradable balloons. The 64-foot-long creature was on display in Istanbul in November 2020. We want to see the popping footage now.