We Flew The Biggest Solar Bag (60ft!) - Science Experiment

I've done lots of cool science experiments and a lot of them high up in the air, but I've always wondered what would it look like to take a drone all the way up in the air, hundreds of feet up, and look down to see this floating bag. This is a 60-foot solar bag. Now, I thought it would be so easy to just get this up because heat rises, so take it out in the day, in the summer, the heat would lift the bag up, I'd get the drone recording, boom, have my footage. It was nothing like that. I mean, first of all, this thing is massive. 60 feet of bag that you need to inflate. I had one bag and the bag ripped. I had three days to film and cloudy weather. And let me tell you, you need it to be really sunny. So Dr. Schnitzel came to spend the day to film a video for the Incredible Science Summer Camp. And he takes out a 20-foot one that he said, let's just start up with this 20-foot one. We couldn't even get the 20-foot one off. It was sunny, but it wasn't hot enough. So he just kept trying to push it up in the air. Started flying a little. I tried getting the drone close to it, and even though I was able to control the drone, I didn't realize I can't control the solar bag. The solar bag went right into the drone. The solar bag ripped, the drone fell down, survived, but that was the end of the 20-foot bag, which wasn't rising anyway. And then we were left with just one bag. But we didn't bother trying it then because we knew it wasn't hot enough for the 20-foot bag. There's no way the 60-foot bag would launch into the air. So I figured I'll save it for the next day. Remember, three days left to the summer before I leave. Three days. Tomorrow was gonna be day one where I could try this. So Thursday, around 12, one o'clock, beautiful sunny day. I have the full 60-foot bag. Nobody in the field. We have the entire field to ourselves. Unroll the bag. As the sun, which is up there somewhere, heats up the black material, it's really thin. It's gonna be filled with air. The air's gonna be hot. It's gonna rise up into the sky. You ready? Yes. Let's do it. Start filling it up. Yehuda's there, you see him. He was so excited to help get this giant bag up. I take the leaf blower, because instead of running around the entire field, you just take a leaf blower and you inflate the bag. It's so much easier. Now, keep in mind, this leaf blower was the leaf blower, the same leaf blower that I kept afloat, those huge 24-inch balloons from the floating balloon ring video. Go watch that video if you wanna see it. That massive leaf blower is what I started using here. Yehuda was unrolling it. I started blowing it up, and it was perfect. It inflated. Yehuda looked amazed. I was so happy. I was about to stop the leaf blower. It ripped from the force of the air coming in. I couldn't believe it. Yehuda couldn't believe it. He felt that it was his fault. He was crushed. I was crushed. We only had two more days. I didn't have another bag. I wanted that footage. We had the whole video planned, but there was no bag. Yehuda felt so bad. I told him over and over, it's not your fault. Don't feel bad. And we were stuck. We didn't know what to do. So, come back to the house. I was like, I gotta get another bag. On the field, I was even going on my phone. I was calling all the companies where I got these, or I mean, I'm selling these, been selling these for years and years, so I know where to get them. Called the companies. It was Thursday afternoon. I said, I need this by tomorrow. I needed this by Friday afternoon, the latest, so that maybe on Sunday, I can film. They would not ship it to me overnight. Said, you need to be at school. I'm like, why do I need to be at school? That's our policy. Nothing. No other store had it. No other store offered overnight shipping, even though I was willing to pay for it. I couldn't get it. And then I remembered, all the way home, I had a ton of these on my shelf. Called my cousin, who was by our house, and I asked her, can you send this on the next bus up, which was leaving in about an hour. She was so good about it. She took five of these, sent it on the bus. I drove to the bus stop three hours later, and I was good to go for the next day. I wake up Friday morning, pouring rain outside, and if you remember from the 20-foot balloon, it doesn't just have to be sunny. It has to be hot and sunny, so that the black can absorb all the heat. It was a washout. The entire day was a washout, and I looked at the weather forecast. It did not look promising for Sunday. I had five of these, ready to inflate, ready to float with a massive field, and the weather was just not cooperating. Sunday morning, I woke up, it's raining, and we're leaving in a few hours. The rain started decreasing. The sun started coming out, and I told Yehuda, let's go. Now is the time. Let's go. So we ran to the field, unrolled it. The skies brightened up. It was unbelievable. It was like literally bottom of the ninth, two outs. Home run with the weather. We unrolled it. I was so super careful with the leaf blower, but I didn't really worry about it now, because I had another four of them. Inflated it beautifully. It literally started lifting off the ground before I even finished inflating it. It felt so good to see that thing just go. Now, I had to tie it with a string, because I think either in here, it says that you need to let the FAA, yes, I did say the FAA, Federal Aviation Authority, if you are going to be releasing this in the air, because this actually appears on radar as a blob, as something in the air. So you can't just let it go. Now, I was not gonna contact the FAA and let them know I'm launching a solar bag, because I probably would have had like 10 FBI agents on the field with us doing the video. So I just figured I'll tie it with a string. And that's what you see me doing, tying the string on it, because I wanted to make sure it wouldn't just fly away. I had to make sure. There were highways down. There were airports near, probably. So I tied it. I got the drone up. I started flying around. I couldn't believe the footage that I got. It was so amazing, just looking at the screen on the drone that I was flying. It felt like I was there, high up in the drone. Yehuda's jaw was like to the floor. Look at that solar bag all the way up there. Do you see it? We got the drone up there. Just to see this massive black hot dog flying in the air, that's what it looked like. I wonder what my neighbors were thinking, but they know me by now. But there was this massive giant black hot dog flying in the air. 60 foot black thing flying in the air. Started going over the trees. I got the drone over it, under it, around it. Almost hit it, but I didn't. After we got everything, I was happy it got stuck in a tree, I didn't want the string to come off. We tried pulling it back a little. We ended up getting it down. Try to grab it. It landed on my neighbor's house. He came out of the house and was like, what in the world is that? He laughed about it and left. I guess he didn't care. I ripped it so this way there's no chance of it flying back up again. The second one I found in the forest, I was confident knowing that it was safe and not taking off into some airplane or onto some highway. You know what? It felt so good doing it with my son. It felt so good that Yehuda was there to do it with me that he was able to experience that massive bag flying. I've seen it a bunch of times. But to have him, he's never seen anything near that big actually lift up, he couldn't understand when I was telling him that this massive thing is actually gonna lift up in the air. So it was cool to have that moment with him and I finally was able to get footage and see what a solar bag looks like from in the air, next to it, flying right next to it, above it, around it. It's not that easy to get all the working parts, the weather, the bag, the drone, the battery, the camera on even, basic things. So many things can go wrong. Yehuda there, it was just beautiful, it was perfect. I'm just reliving that excitement telling you guys the story. And so happy I was finally able to get that footage and show it to you guys. Sometimes the hardest things are the most rewarding and this was challenging but the payoff was amazing. Thanks so much for watching. I'll see you in the next video and as always, stay incredible.