Inflatable

 

Today is Thanksgiving, which means the annual Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade, complete with marching bands, floats, and of course, giant balloons.  As a young child, one of my favorites was the Underdog balloon, perhaps because the cartoon was always one of my favorites.  (there was a time where my day began only after I had watched an episode of Underdog on television, but it's not shown anymore- maybe because all his superpowers came from pills)  Unfortunately, that Underdog balloon was officially retired almost 40 years ago, and now you see balloons of other cartoon characters that I never watch. 

I do know a bit about inflatable plastic objects because it is a project I did with my various 3D Foundations classes that I taught for 7 semesters at two schools I worked at for many years.  It was a project I got from one of my grad school classmates, adapted to my situation.  I started them with sketches done from an encyclopedia of wildlife (no cartoon characters permitted for my class- we're not Macy's I would tell my students).  They chose one sketch to expand into a 3D model using bristol board, and that was used to calculate how to make the 8 foot inflatable object.  The sculptures were made out of plastic drop cloths and sealing tape.  I also didn't allow simples shapes like worms or snakes- there had to be articulated parts (legs, fins, etc).  And I allowed them to work in groups, of up to three.  We found a hair dryer did a fine job of inflating them.  Below are a few examples from that class:

These are all student examples, so obviously it could be done.  And everyone who was still in the class at the end of the semester did the project.  It only had to last long enough to be graded and photographed, and I took all the photos of student projects.  I got the above Underdog photo from Pinterest, but I figure it's fair, as many of the projects that students did for the class ended up getting posted there.

When students asked me if there was some kind of practical application for this skill, I told them they could always try to get a job working at the parade.   However, the fabric would be much larger, and they would probably have to use something stronger than plastic tape to hold it together.   On the other hand, they would probably get a large supply of helium to blow it up.