Materials Needed for Stress Balls
- Spoons
- Bowls
- Funnels
- Orbeez or scented, ball-shaped, gel air-fresheners (We used the Renuzit scent swirl coconut, plumeria, & pineapple scent)
- Flour
- Any rice
- Plastic water bottle
- Balloons
How to Make Flour Stress Balls
- Pour about a cup of flour into plastic bottle using the funnel (1)
- Squeeze the bottle to minimize the amount of air getting into the balloon
- Put the balloon over the mouth of the bottle (2)
- Flip the water bottle upside down & fill to desired size (3)
- Take the balloon off of the bottle & tie it
How to Make Orbeez Stress Balls
- Pull the bottom of a rubber balloon through the funnel opening (1)
- Wrap the mouth of the balloon around the funnel (2)
- Place 2-3 orbeez at a time into the balloon, using your fingers or a spoon to push down them down the neck of the balloon(3)
- Continue adding orbeez until desired size, then tie it
How to Make Rice Stress Balls
- Take a balloon & stretch out the mouth of the balloon (1)
- Stick a funnel through the mouth (optional step)
- Pour the rice through the funnel or directly through the balloon
- Fill it up & tie the end to secure the balloon (2)
Conclusion/Overall Experience
After making three different types of stress balls, I concluded that the rice and flour stress balls were more durable and longer lasting compared to the orbeez stress balls. For some people, the stress balls had popped or exploded because the material of the balloons were too thin so it was more prone to popping. The problem we ran into was not having the orbeez or flour to stay in the balloon; it kept wanting to ¨spit out¨ what was being put inside of the balloon.
Making the orbeez stress ball was complicated but we created a method using our funnels. The flour stress balls were even more complicated and was very messy! We had to search up a technique on how to put flour inside of the balloon. We ended up using a water bottle to put the flour inside but I had to pay $2.49 at Chipotle for ONE water bottle… it was a waste of money, but it had to be done. The rice one was made by one of my group members but unfortunately she wasn’t able to come to the group’s rendezvous. We had a couple of incidences where the balloon popped while we were making the stress balls and it got really messy. I believe the rice stress balls were the easiest to make and it’s one of the best due to its texture. To add, the rice stress balls can also be used as phone stands! Overall, we were at the rocky start but once we found out how to make them, we gradually became faster and faster at making them.
Final Result/Thoughts
Our final result turned out great! A lot of different people in our second period English class enjoyed the stress balls and I was glad that I helped to contribute to relieving their stress. Lots of people loved the different textures and we allowed the person to choose what stress ball they liked the most so it can accommodate for their need.
If there was a next time to do this, I would definitely do it at a backyard or at someone’s house because we were right outside of Blaze Pizza and a good amount of people passed by wondering what we were doing (some even came that were from our school!). Also, I would definitely bring water bottles for the flour stress balls since they were more intricate to make.
DylASMR 