the first photo is a cotton ball i had used to apply alum to some of our tissue paper that had sat on our coffee table for like 3 days... the second was an un-alumed cotton ball.  the first one was able to have the flame held directly on it for a significant time with only slight singing, the second one however sort of looked at the flame and caught fire that spread over the entire surface in a matter of seconds. 

as for the ballloon i am working on getting a top put on a cylndrical balloon while sarah and isabel are working on the triangular design.  i also still have a secret scheme to try a gigantanormous geodesic dome.
the cylandar i am currently working on is going to have about 1.153 cubic feet of internal volume, from some of the resarch we have done it appears that approximatly one cf is the smallest volume that will produce functional lift.

the figuring for the tetrahedron a perfectly shaped one with all edges measuring 24 inches will have a volume of about 1.288 cf.  however our design should increase the volume some what.

the geodesic dome may prove to be somewhat of a problem.....  it turns out that to get 1.198 cf of volume it has to have a diameter of 16 inches.  which given some of our experiments with the dome may prove to be unable to support itself in the same fashion we have used for some of the designs so far.  i do however have the design drawn in a size that should give about a 20 inch diameter (it looks daunting though)