DIY Zeppelin

A mini zeppelin made from various spare items. It makes up for its approximately 30 gram weight with about 10 full helium balloons that let it float in midair. It can also propel itself forward with a propeller when a wire is inserted into its motor.

Supplies

1 roll of electrical tape

1 small propeller

1 small motor ~20 grams

1 AAA battery

2 wires

1 bottle of strong glue or hot glue gun

1 small but tall piece of balsa wood (or some kind of pole that many ribbons can be taped to)

1 roll of ribbons

10 or more latex balloons

1 can of at least 80% helium

Step 1: Propeller and Battery

Once you have all of your materials, try to firmly hold one end of both cords on each side of the battery. Now, tape the ends of the cords onto the battery with tape,and afterwards put the end of a single cord onto the motor, while leaving the other cord free until you want to turn it on (in which case you put it through the hole of non taped motor prong). Finally, tape the battery onto the motor itself to prevent it from hanging during flight

Step 2: Balloons and Pole

Glue a small piece of balsa wood or some kind of pole onto part of the motor and let it dry. Now fill up 10 or more helium balloons, tie them to ribbons, and tape the ribbons to the balsa wood them to the piece of balsa wood. Finally tape the top part of the bundle of ribbons so that the balloons will not fly in different directions.

Step 3: Prototypes

While making this project, I overestimated the power of helium balloons and made my machine too heavy. While helium balloons effectively reduce the weight of something by about 3 grams, my prototype was 90 grams and required too many balloons. Because of this, I made the current version, which weighs only about 30 grams due to the exclusion of double A batteries