Coming Up With the Idea

My group up with the idea to make stress balls for students in order to decrease their stress as finals approach. The idea started when we were reading the book Night in our English class. The book is about the true story of a man who experienced the Holocaust. While reading, our teacher had us make a needs sheet in order to have us write anything that we feel is needed in our lives. Although the needs I wrote down didn’t relate much to our project, based on those needs it led my group and me to come up with topics related to our project.

The Next Step

Once we came up with a topic related to our needs we wrote down some of the worst ideas that we could do for our topic. We chose survival as our topic. Once we wrote down all of our bad ideas, we went around the classroom to look at other ideas and write questions about them. Once we received we looked at what other groups wrote on our paper it helped us brainstorm on what we should do for the final project that is a need for us and others around us.

Eventually, we came up with the idea to make DIY stress balls for our classmates.

Process

We made three different types of stress balls: rice, flour, and orbeez.

Rice:

Materials:

• Rice
• Balloons
• Funnel

Procedure:

1. Take the balloon and stretch out the mouth of the balloon
2. Stick a funnel through the mouth (not necessary)
3. Pour the rice through the funnel or directly through the balloon
4. Fill it up and tie the end to secure the balloon
5. Squeeze it and test it out

Flour:

Materials:

• Flour
• Funnel
• 1-3 Plastic bottles (number of bottles vary based on how many you’re making)
• Spoon
• Balloons

Procedure:

1. Pour about a cup of flour into a plastic bottle using the funnel
2. Put the balloon over the mouth of the bottle 
3. Squeeze the bottle to minimize air getting into the balloon
4. Pour flour into the balloon until filled to the desired size 
5. Take the balloon off of the bottle and tie it

Orbeez:

Materials:

• Orbeez (We got them from an air fresher but you can also make them yourself)
• Funnel
• Spoon
• Balloons

Procedure

1. Pull the bottom of a rubber balloon through the funnel 
2. Wrap the opening of the funnel around the funnel 
3. Place 2-3 orbeez at a time into the ballon, using your fingers or a spoon to push down the orbeez 
4. Place orbeez until full, and tie it off

Struggles

When we first started, we had a struggle figuring out how to get the ingredients into the balloon. We were able to figure out the orbeez and rice but the flour was a little bit of a challenge. At first, we tried using the funnel to fill the balloon with flour but we realized that it was too small and difficult to fill the balloon completely. Eventually, we tried using the bottle and it worked. Though, if you are making a lot of stress balls out of flour I suggest having multiple bottles because they become crushed while trying to squeeze the flour in which makes it harder as you make more.

Final Results

Overall, it was a fun and amusing project. When we gave it out to our class it was nice seeing how excited and interested they were. Many enjoyed squeezing them and we received great feedback. Our teacher, Mr. T, also found another way to use them, as a phone stand. Next time, I would buy stronger and better quality balloons because my group got some from the Dollar Store and they ended up popping. I hope that our project was able to help others to calm themselves and feel relaxed when they are under pressure or stressed about something.