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Conclusions

We took high speed digital photographs of air-filled balloons bursting halfway underwater and completely underwater.  To do this we used a custom made plastic tank with greater clarity than a fishtank, filled approximately 2/3 to 4/5 full of water, several balloons, weights to hold down the balloons, Vivitar 283 flash unit to capture a precise moment in time, and a Nixon 990 Coolpix digital camera to capture the illuminated phenomenon. We used two methods to pop the balloon: pricking the balloon with a pin and shooting it with a pellet gun.

Our experiment was a success in that we captured these phenomena several times and gained insight into the nature of a balloon burst itself.  The underwater aspect of the experiment produced an image that was sometimes not only very interesting, but very pleasing to the eye.  We had trouble with gaining the proper exposure on some of our pictures, and the steps taken to resolve the issue only partially helped.  If we did things again, we would add another flash unit to the other side of the balloon which would discharge at the same time as the original unit.  We would not attempt to capture a completely underwater burst without a pellet gun, as the sound trigger and delay units were troublesome when we attempted to trigger them with a pinprick. 

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