Big Picture Paper planes... What makes an ideal design?

On your marks... Using the scrap paper make a plane...

Today Sorted it MASTERED IT NAILED IT Trial different designs for paper planes Justify your choice of design, and calculate its speed. Choose and construct your final design

Design and Build There are instructions available for 10 different paper plane designs, or you can design your own. Designs include; arrow, dart, stealth, moth, custom, bat, ring, spinster, champ and kite.

Lets fly... It’s time to fly and see which designs are best REMEMBER: you need to also measure: The distance it travels (in metres) and the time it is in the air (in seconds).

The Maths bit.. You should have the distance your plane flew (in metres) and the time it was in the air (in seconds). Can you work out its speed ?

Big Picture How did you decide on your final design? How did you test it? What was your speed?

And the winner is …

Teachers notes YOU WILL NEED – Scrap paper/ A3 paper / Paper plane instructions printed from / measuring tape / stopwatch and a space to fly your planes (we’ve used a corridor or outdoors) Students to work in groups of 3 or 4 – each group will need some scrap paper and some A3 sheets of paper (x 2) Start by getting each student (so they are all doing something) to make a paper plan using the scrap paper. Give them a selection of the instructions for various designs – you may want to allow them to design and tweak their own or want them to build specific designs – allocate them a set amount of time to do this. Beware planes will start flying around the room. When planes are constructed you need to get each team to take turns flying their planes (I’ve allowed them to have 3 goes each and we take the best distance). They need to record their distance and time in seconds. As the final plenary bring them all together and see if they can calculate the speed of their planes. Be sure to take photos for your newsletter/website or just to remind students that maths can be fun!