Static electricity and sticky balloons

With the country in lockdown due to the Covid-19 coronavirus we've been taking advantage of the time to try out some experiments.

My sons were taking great delight rubbing the balloon on their heads to get their hair to stand on end when they decided to throw it up onto the wooden ceiling beam. Where it promptly stuck.

I've often tried to stick balloons to the wall or ceiling with static electricity often with no success so this was a really good result! But, what's happening?!

When the balloon was rubbed against the hair, electrons were deposited from the hair onto the balloon. This gave it an overall slight negative charge.

Now, when the balloon touched the beam, although the beam was neutral the electrons in the balloon repelled those in the wood. This gave the surface of the wood a slight positive charge, which like a magnet will lead to positive and negative building a slight attractive force.

And what's more awesome is that the tiny amount of electric charge caused just by rubbing the balloon is enough to overcome the force of gravity from the whole Earth!