Pom Pom Shooters Science Experiment

July 3, 2022 Wendy Schollum

Pom-poms
Top tip: if you don’t have any, you can use cotton balls, marshmallows or paper crumbled up into small balls.
Empty toilet rolls
Top tip: you can also use plastic/paper cups with the ends cut off.
Balloons
Scissors
A tape measure or ruler
Rubber bands or sticky tape (optional)
Paper and/or colouring pens, to decorate your shooters with (optional)

Using your scissors, cut the top tip of a balloon off.
Don’t cut too much off, you need enough balloon remaining to attach it to your toilet roll or modified disposable cup.
Stretch the balloon over the end toilet roll as far as possible, ensuring that the end you usually blow into (to inflate the balloon) is in the centre of the toilet roll hole.
For extra safety (or if the balloon is not staying in place), use sticky tape or a rubber band to secure the balloon to the outside of the toilet roll.
Tie a knot in the part of the balloon you usually blow into.
Insert a pom-pom, marshmallow or cotton ball into the open end of the toilet roll.
Pointing away from your face (and those of others) pull the balloon knot back and release to “fire” your pom-pom!
Draw a line on the ground in chalk and start experimenting…

Draw a line on the ground in chalk and use a tape measure or rule to try these experiments…

Fire a number of different size pom-poms to see what the size of your pom-poms does to the distance they travel.
Try firing your pom-poms by pointing your shooter straight ahead, then try again with the shooter pointed slightly more upwards. How does the change in angle affect the distance that your pom-poms travel?
Try making shooters from other materials (e.g. paper cups, cut-down pool noodles, etc). Does the material of your shooter change the distance it can fire?
Does pulling the balloon further make the pom-pom go further? Experiment with differing pulls.

This science experiment lets you see Sir Isaac Newton’s laws of motion in action!

The first law of motion is that an object will remain at rest until a force is placed on it. The pom-pom isn’t launching by itself - we create the force using the balloon.
The second law of motion is that a mass (in this case, the pom-pom) will accelerate when a force is placed on it.
In this experiment, we see that acceleration when the pom-pom shoot forward, after force is applied by the balloon being pulled back and released.
The third law of motion is that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.
In this case, the force of the stretched balloon pushing the ball out is equal to the force pushing the ball back.

Send us a photo of your Pom Pom Shooter experiment and what you learnt and you might find your creation featured on the Upstart website OR in a future issue of Upstart magazine… AND win a prize!