by Henrietta Rasmusson
5th Grade at Douglas J. Regan Intermediate School (Pendleton, NY)
First Place
One sunny day, a knight was walking through the woods when he came across a tall tower and saw a princess who looked like she was locked up in the high tower. There was a huge dragon guarding the tower. The knight took out a large stick and waved it at the dragon. The princess yelled out, but the knight couldn’t hear her.
Up in the tower, the princess was indeed locked in her room, and she needed to get out - but how? The window was too far above the ground to jump out. She thought about climbing down her hair, like Rapunzel. She knew that hair has high tensile strength, but the princess remembered she had a short haircut, so that wouldn’t work. She then thought about being an astronaut, until she remembered this was no time to be thinking about her career plans, and she needed to focus. The princess thought about using magic, but remembered that magic doesn’t really exist and is just science or engineering used to fool people. That was it! She needed to engineer her way out.
She looked around the room, and saw her French horn, her snow pants, her chemistry set, her sewing kit, and some leftover balloons from her birthday party. Outside, the princess saw a large tree, but it was not near her window. Beneath her window was a mixture of poison ivy and giant hogweed. She needed to get to the tree. But how? She looked at the tree, and remembered the time she went zip lining. That was it! She would build a zip line.
The princess grabbed a computer cable. It was very long, and would easily reach the tree. But how could she get the cable to the tree? The tree was too far away to throw it. She thought about using a bow and arrow, but remembered she didn’t get one for her birthday. Then she remembered the party balloons! That would work! She had twenty helium balloons. Helium balloons float because they are lighter than air. Helium has a lifting force of 1g per liter.
She weighed the cable. It was 160g. She estimated the volume of each balloon to be 6L. That means the balloons had a total lifting power of 120g. The princess was disappointed, because it seemed that the cable was too heavy for the balloons. Then, she realized that the balloons only needed to support half the weight of the cable, because one end of the cable would be attached to the tower. Her plan should work!
The princess tied one end of the cable to her tower, and the other end to the balloons. Fortunately, there was a breeze blowing in the direction of the tree. Once the balloons reached the tree, the princess went to her sewing kit and took out her sharp pins. She picked up one of the rainbow straws left over from her birthday party, and went over to the window. The princess grabbed some feathers from the bottom of the birdcage. Her pet parrot was always shedding feathers. She put the feathers on the back of the pin, to make the pin aerodynamic and stable in flight. She put the pin in the straw, and then blew with all her might and popped one balloon. The cable started to lower. She did it again and again until all the balloons were popped and the cable was stuck securely in the tree bound by the balloons which were caught in the tree. The princess tugged on the cable, and it was secure.
The princess pulled on her ski overalls and attached the top loops of her overalls to the cable. She carefully threaded the cable through her French horn keys. Her plan was to push down on her French horn keys to create resistance and control her speed as she descended on the zipline. She grabbed her French horn and jumped off the tower!
She ziplined across to the tree. She climbed down the tree to the ground, and ran over to the knight. She exclaimed “Good Sir Knight! Please stop attacking my pet dragon!”
The knight looked horrified, then surprised, then embarrassed. The princess said “I tried to tell you that was my pet dragon when you first arrived, but you didn’t hear me. I couldn’t get out of my room in the tower because I was playing with my chemistry set this morning and there was an explosion which melted the handle and the lock!”
The knight said “I wasn’t harming your dragon, we were playing fetch with my big stick!”
They both laughed, and they played fetch with the dragon happily ever after.
Annotated Bibliography
Journal of Physics Special Topics
Author: Bettles, J. E., Clarke, I., Perry, M. and Pilkington, N. M. (11/13/2011)
This reference talks about the physics of Rapunzel’s hair. The authors worked out that human hair could support a human climbing on it.
Giant Hogweed more lethal than poison ivy
Author: Vicki Johnson (7/8/2018)
This reference talks about the giant hogweed, and states that it can “cause severe burns, scarring and blindness!”
How many regular-sized helium-filled balloons would it take to lift someone?
Author: Katherine Neer (Accessed 1/3/2019)
This reference says that helium balloons can carry 1g per liter, and calculates the number of balloons needed to lift a person.
Fins for rocket stability
Author: Richard Nakka (8/26/2001)
This reference talks about the importance of putting fins on rockets so that they are stable in flight.