AUBURN – Jena Dubois never thought it would fly.

The tissue-paper hot-air balloon was fun to make, but would the middle school science project get off the ground?

“I didn’t think it would go up because every time we looked at it, it had a bunch of holes in it,” said Dubois, 13.

Using a couple of camp stoves, Dubois and her teammates filled their green and blue balloon with hot air Friday morning. Behind Auburn Middle School, they let it go.

And go.

And go.

“It’s not coming down!” Dubois shouted, laughing as the 8-foot balloon rose about 100 feet into the air and floated across the field.

It was the first of many.

Nearly 50 Auburn Middle School seventh- and eighth-graders created their own hot-air balloons this month as part of a science project on flight and physics. In teams of three, the pupils spent part of every day for three weeks gluing and taping sheets of colorful tissue paper in the form of 15 large balloons.

It was an experiment that teacher Sue Myers had wanted to do for a couple of years.

“What better way to learn the principles of flight, buoyancy and air than building your own hot-air balloon?” Myers said.

Friday morning, the Auburn middle schoolers put their projects to the test.

Using cylinders heated with camp stoves and propane torches, teachers tried blowing hot air into the balloons. But the muggy morning air proved as warm as the heat inside the balloons.

The first balloon, a rainbow-colored creation by a team of three girls, inflated slightly. Then it sagged.

“If we can just get enough heat inside here, it’ll work. I hope.” said teacher Jim Carmichael.

Open flames didn’t work. The propane torch didn’t work.

But the two camp stoves did.

“Gotta believe, gotta believe,” Myers chanted softly as the balloon inflated and lifted slightly off the ground.

Tethered by kite string, the rainbow balloon floated about 20 feet into the air. It hovered for a few seconds, despite a small hole in its side.

A few minutes later, Dubois and her teammates decided not to tether their balloon.

It was the first to float above the school. For more than a minute, the balloon stayed in the air, carried by the breeze into the fields nearby.

More than a dozen kids chased after it, laughing and yelling as they ran.

“I was so surprised. I couldn’t believe it,” said Dubois as her classmates carried the balloon back to the school.

After an hour of hot-air ballooning, many of the middle schoolers could rattle off facts about air pressure and wind. A few thought the project – and the science behind it – was cool.

“This is the way to start the year,” Myers said.