Linnéa hangs on by a thread

Here's a description of the contestant's attempt. Someone's probably working on collecting some images to illustrate it.

Linnéa searches the shed and emerges with a spool of thread. After a bit of off-camera building, Linnéa’s device is revealed: a simple stick with the spool of thread on it, capped by a bit of gaffer tape at the end, jammed into the loop of a small weight (this ensures that the spool of thread can move freely on the stick, but cannot come off of either end). The balloons are tied to the thread, and are being held by David. David is instructed to simply let go of the balloons to start the timer. David releases the balloons, which immediately start floating into the air. However, they are still tethered to the spool of thread, which starts unspooling as the balloons keep rising. David keeps up commentary on the thread, which fully unspools after 12 minutes 12 seconds. Unfortunately for Linnéa, the manufacturers of the thread had taped the end of it directly to the spool. As such, the balloons remain permanently tethered to the device, and never fly freely. Linnéa earns joint last place.

(Written by Jenny R and proofread by Karl Craven)