November 20th - after noon
3.30pm
Glenn and the Science Shack team are about to lay down the last of the 32 sections of paper - known technically as 'gores' - which will make up the 17 metre high balloon - 17 metres calculated (by the Science Shack team) to be the minimum necessary to lift Adam off the ground.

4pm
Precision engineering is crucial as the team draws onto the paper using the template devised last night. They will all be cut one on top of the other. Then stuck together using sticky paper. No one here has ever made a balloon before - let alone on a Science Shack budget and using electric heaters to fill the balloon with hot air.

Chris, the Science Shack masterbuilder, welder, grinder and rivet popper, had looked a bit queasy about the prospect of doing 'all this origami' but he has taken to the paper like a duck to water - or is that like a Labrador to the toilet roll?

5pm
Adam is handed a radio controlled helium balloon which he is enchanted by. But as he looks at it he calculates that his paper balloon will have to have a ton of mass in it to give him the buoyancy he needs to be airborn (remember - a balloon weighs nothing or has negative weight in the air - but it definitely has mass - in a vacuum it would certainly tip the scales).

Director Paul Bader adopts the radio controlled balloon as a pet but is already starting to worry about taking it out to the park every day.

The Science Shack balloon starts to take shape (or at least the panels do). 32 of these, stuck together and filled with hot air, SHOULD lift Adam off the ground.

6.30pm
Jonathan has built his own prototype balloon to test out. He blows hot air inside it with a paint stripper and the balloon is just able to stay aloft. But the big enemy is the heat loss from the surface of the balloon. Jonathan still has to think of a way of pumping enough air into the full sized balloon.

7pm
Building a huge paper balloon takes time! So Producer Jonathan has charmed some Bedford students into helping stick the panels together.

'Angle grinder' Chris has turned into a delicate craftsman. Here he tests out a folded paper wing in preparation for tomorrow's great paper plane experiment.

Adam has been making paper planes and throwing them around the hangar - appealing to all of us to look at his great designs. No one is paying him much attention so he gives up and goes back to his newspaper. It'll soon be time to get back to the hotel and get some kip in preparation for another long day tomorrow.

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