How are Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade balloons designed, calculated, fabricated, tested, and retested before they show up on the streets of Manhattan on Thanksgiving morning?
From Science Friday in 2011, visit the ‘balloonatics’ at Macy’s Parade Studio in New Jersey:
John Piper and Jim Artle take us around the studio and spill the secrets of inflation, explain how to calculate whether your balloon will float, and explain why the balloons look better after a little time in the sun.
There’s more Thanksgiving Science at Science Friday, plus more holidays, more helium, and more balloon videos on this site, including recreating the balloon house from Pixar’s Up.
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