Capturing a bursting water balloon

During our attempts to capture this, we found out the best settings on our cameras for good results were:

1. the highest shutter speed (1/4000sec , f/5.6 and ISO 400)

2. the burst mode on the camera was changed from single to continoues

3. we also had the person popping the water balloon count 1, 2 &3

4. when the count got to "2" those with cameras start taking pictures

As for the challenge of capturing the water balloon popping when thrown and caught, it was more random. We focused on the person catching