Paintball Balloons

Chris Pasterczyk and Students

Chris Pasterczyk's  1998-'99 physics class continued to experiment with cornstarch in balloons (see Cornstarch Gallery for earlier photos).  However, they didn't stop there.  They also tried water and glitter as fillings.  A sense of motion is provided in several of the photos by the use of long flash duration.

A unique popping mechanism, a paintball gun, was used. The paintballs--traveling at about 250 ft/s--emerged from the muzzle of the CO₂ powered gun. The projectiles themselves didn't explode upon impact with the balloons. Credit for all of the shots goes to Stephen Carpenter, whose gun was used and who fired with great accuracy, even in the dark.