Make Static Soccer Players

Materials you'll need

• Paper napkins (one per player)
• Pencil
• Scissors
• Crayons and a fine-tip marker
• Tape
• Balloon
• A wool sweater, fleece blanket, or your own hair (to charge the balloon)
• Green paper, for a soccer field backdrop (optional)

 

Step-by-step tutorial

Step 1: Unfold a napkin and use a pencil to lightly sketch a player — arms flung out wide and legs apart, like they just scored a goal.

Step 2: Cut out your player shape along the pencil lines.

Step 3: Color in the jersey, shorts, socks, and face with crayons, then use a marker to add details like a jersey number and a little soccer ball by their feet.

Step 4: Repeat Steps 1–3 to make a few more players, each in a different jersey color.

Step 5: Set your players up on a "field" (a sheet of green paper works great) and tape down just their feet so they stand upright on their own.

Step 6: Rub the balloon on a wool sweater, fleece blanket, or your hair to charge it up. Hold it above your players without touching them, and watch their arms lift up like they're cheering!

Learn more

This trick works thanks to static electricity. Rubbing the balloon on wool or hair transfers tiny negatively charged particles called electrons onto the balloon, giving it a negative charge. When you hold the charged balloon near your neutral napkin players, it pushes electrons away from the side of the paper closest to it, leaving that side with a slight positive charge. Since opposite charges attract, the balloon pulls the lightweight napkin arms right up toward it without ever touching them.