Popping the balloon

[cypressfalls Robert]

This is a disscusion for the task to pop a balloon.

-mouse traps with needles on ends
-mass dropping on the balloon

what other ways have people accomplishing this?

[Sir_L_Jenkins]

-mouse traps with needles on ends

hmm, that sounds slightly dangerous...I would not want to be the guy setting that mousetrap as I have a bad track record with them not actually being set, then having the kill bar hit my fingers, haha.

[Protestant]

Also with the balloons you may want to make sure the popping is shielded. We got penalized when a piece of our popped balloon exited the boundary of our device.

[Paradox21]

So I was working really late the night before my 1st competition to get my MP finished. And my popping device was a motor with a straight pin attached. It worked perfectly for actually popping the balloon. But it was about midnight when I installed it in my device and I installed it too low so it kept hitting the bottom of the box every time it went around. So in the one practice run I did before competition day, the needle just bent out of the way of the box after a while. But in competition it broke off the motor and flew about 30 feet out of the box, directly over the judges head. That was REALLY bad. So as soon as I got back to school after the competition I remounted the motor higher up so it wouldn't hit the ground and hooked it up to a relay so the motor would stop running once the next transfer was triggered.

If you didn't read that big paragraph, the short version is that you can use a motor with a pin on it to pop a balloon very effectively as long as everything works properly. And I have also seen teams DQed for having scraps of balloon fly out of their device, so plan accordingly.

[pfeiff]

I used the hydralics to push a pin into the balloon to pop it then drop a mass

[Xenarian]

I'm using a solenoid, with a pin attached to the moving part. Will later replace this with a scalpel blade, I think.

Oh, and a little hint: Use a water balloon. They never specify the size of the balloon, so use a water one such that you end up using less of your precious space on it. But don't fill with water, silly.

[courage7856]

We used a homemade poking device (read: thumbtack taped to copper tubing) that is attached to our monofilament. When we drop the golf ball, it sets of the mousetrap, setting up the circuit, melting a monofilament, dropping our poking device, and pops our balloon.

[yousmellchinese123]

So then, I don't have the rules in front of me at the moment, but then I'm pretty sure that it was pop a balloon to start the next task or something along those lines right?
If so, if we had a weight on the balloon and it dropped when the balloon popped, that would be considered nonparallel and it would count for the task completion right?

[Flavorflav]

So then, I don't have the rules in front of me at the moment, but then I'm pretty sure that it was pop a balloon to start the next task or something along those lines right?
If so, if we had a weight on the balloon and it dropped when the balloon popped, that would be considered nonparallel and it would count for the task completion right?

Yes.

[courage7856]

To help keep the balloon in one place, we're keeping it in a grocery bag. That way, when the balloon pops, it stays in the bag. I know it's not perfect, but its the best method that we've seen for containing the balloon and not being DQ'ed.