"How Hard Can it Be?" brings Pixar's UP! to life.
My 4 year old daughter has watched Up! at least 10 times this week. Ever since I put it on my iPad it has been on constant replay for her. She asked me about whether or not our house could float like the house in the movie, now I know it could.National Geographic filmed an episode for a new show "How Hard Can it Be?" about the house in the Disney/Pixar movie Up!. It took 300, 8ft tall balloons to lift a 16x16 ft house 10,000 feet into the air. Anyone know where I can buy 8 ft tall balloons?
The series "How Hard Can it Be?" premiers this fall on the National Geographic Channel.
Thank you Lanne (@lanneb) for finding this story.
Wilderness Explorer
Jeff
You can buy them here - http://www.sun-promos.com/helium_ballooms.html
I costed out some 4foot balloons and some balsa wood to make a house. It came to about $1500. I talked to my 7 year old about it and we decided that if the balloons burst and it crashed it might hurt someone or damage property..opps. Instead.. we are making a cardboard house and using 8 helium balloons. (the store thought 5 was enough but we decided to go with 8).. I also got gel added for extra lift.
I found some plans online and will make a small model.. and we can launch it tomorrow. I will be sure and share photos of our success/failure.
The plans are available here - http://themodelmaker.net/flying-house-model-pixar-up/comment-page-1/#comment-3415
UPDATE:
We skipped the pattern and built our own. It was light but still too heavy for 8 balloons. We bought 10 more and were very very close.. We took it to the park and launched it.. but it didn't get enough lift. A teen rescued it from a tree.. and we tried again. It failed :( so we decided to keep it.. I had made a painted wooden version and we have tied the balloons to those and are enjoying having an UP house. It was a fun family project and 25 -30 balloons would have been a sure thing! We spent about $10 on card and $50 on balloons.. so allow about $100. It may be cheaper to get a helium tank?
You can see some short videos here.
http://lanne.posterous.com/up-house-launch-1-26-march-2011-3-pm or http://lanne.posterous.com/up-house-launch-2-26-march-2011-3-pm