TEDCO Tedcotoys Kids Activity 50-Foot Solar Balloon for 14 years

This is great fun! You must be very careful with the balloon because it will tear easily. It can be patched with thin packing tape. It works best earlier in the morning because it warms up with the sun and will rise into the air. I get this balloon every year to use with my middle schoolers and they love it.! You may need some extra string because it can go very high.

We bought this and didn’t use it for a while. 13 year old decided to bring it to the beach. It was amazingly fun! Hard to control, a little wild, but seriously , it’s so large people walked from way down the beach to see what the amazing “floating sausage was.” It is thin, as people note. But it landed in the ocean multiple times and scraped across the shells and was just fine. We also did it with some wind blowing which is not recommended but added to the fun.

I bought and have used these as part of a science camp that I teach for elementary students. They are a lot of fun, but you do have to be very careful. Caution: They are essentially like a big, ultra-thin trash bag. They work best on clear days in the early morning (so I've heard), However, I've used them in the morning and afternoon, low humidity, high, etc. When you tie your string to the end you're holding, be careful not to tear the bag when you are opening it back up to pack up. I always caution them NOT TO TOUCH THE BAG AFTER INFLATED. It is easy to puncture, especially when inflated. Even touching it may leave a finger imprint. My kids like to roll/ run underneath it as it sometimes floats up and down, but with that, their foot can easily tear it if it strikes it. Make sure you are in a large field as if it comes down on anything, it could tear. The ones this year flew up so high that it cleared some 50ft trees in the field we were in, flew over the parking lot, over the college buildings and actually into the adjacent forest. Crazy crazy. It was a blast for the kids though. Cool lesson for teachers to talk about solar energy as the bag heads up quickly and you can feel the heat within the bag when it's still open.

We loved this balloon. It is a bit fragile, but we had no problems getting it full of air and it wasn’t very windy. You really need a sunny day for it to work. We did it on a cloudy day and it would fly really high then float back down when the clouds came by. We did get a small hole on the end but tied it off, no problem. I had purchased two in case the first one tore but we didn’t need it.

I was really excited to try the TEDCO 50-Foot Solar Balloon as a fun science activity, but unfortunately, it didn’t work as expected. The material was very thin and flimsy, tearing easily during setup, and despite several attempts on a sunny day, the balloon never lifted off the ground. The idea behind it is great — educational and engaging — but the quality just isn’t there. It might work better with sturdier material or clearer instructions. Sadly, this one was a disappointment.

Ok, seriously, this thing is fun! All the kids around us were just in awe. But, ANY wind and it will blow away or get damaged on sticks, trees, anything at all. Ours has a couple of holes in it but it still fills up. I'm going to try and patch it with some tape. My 12 yo son loves to fill it up (which is quick, like 30 seconds) and run around with it. You will not regret this toy! Get outside and have fun.

Love this thing. Its pretty easy to fly ( easier than a kite in my opinion) and a lot of fun. Once it gets going it will get hot and it will tear if you get rough with it. I took mine out about 5 times now and sofar no major damage, just a small hole or to where the string was tied. Through my experience it works best on cold Sunny mornings, because it floats by the air inside being hotter than the air outside

After reading reviews about the balloon tearing easily, I thought about where to use the balloon and decided that the local soccer fields would be perfect since they’re mostly wide open. The balloon worked better than I expected and we had our fun for about an hour. unfortunately, since the balloon is so long, it wrapped around a soccer goal and was easily torn. We’re planning to buy another one because we really enjoyed it but will need to find a big area with NOTHING around in order to avoid tears.