By Cara Schildmeyer, Rachael Botsford, and Austen Sekerak Paper Airplane Project By Cara Schildmeyer, Rachael Botsford, and Austen Sekerak

“If you can think it, we can build it.” Company Motto “If you can think it, we can build it.”

Understand To understand the project, we read this handout: https://www.schoology.com/docviewer/645263997/271630c1c698ce6af6c536dd6d5b0c7a

Explore Then, we began researching paper plane designs on the internet and on Youtube to form a basis of knowledge One of the sites we used: http://www.instructables.com/id/Ultimate-Paper-Airplanes/ Another site: http://www.foldnfly.com/#/1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-2

Define In our research online for different paper airplane designs (and based on this paper airplane document: https://app.schoology.com/docviewer/645263997/271630c1c698ce6af6c536dd6d5b0c7a) we formulated iseas for what the time and distance plane designs should look like The planes designed for time had wider wings and were broader or square-shaped to provide plenty of thrust The planes designed for distance were long and thin, with narrow wings and a pointed nose to allow for plenty of thrust, and little drag or lift

Define: Pictures Distance Airplane Time Airplane

Three of our time paper airplane prototypes are shown above Ideate We began to create rough models out of paper using the videos and websites from our research There were plenty of models of each of the time and distance planes, which we narrowed down to only a few designs in the next step Three of our time paper airplane prototypes are shown above

Ideate: Images A combination of time and distance paper airplane prototypes shown to the right

Prototype As we approached the final prototype, we tested all of our prototypes and narrowed it down to three distance plane designs that we compared All were similar: They had narrow, pointed noses and were long and slender to allow for greater “thrust” (forward motion) with a dart-like effect We tested these planes and chose the one that flew the farthest as the final prototype Less focus on the time prototype We tested the time planes and chose about four planes to test for our final prototype They had larger wings and were more square-like to allow for plenty of thrust We tested all of our planes and chose the designs that stayed in the air the longest and traveled the farthest

Prototype: Images Final time paper airplane prototype shown to the left Final distance paper airplane prototype shown to the right

Prototype compared to final models Refine Kept our large-scale designs almost identical Only change: Adding three loops of masking tape in the half crease of both large-scale planes This compensated for the larger surface area and weight of the plane, which caused it to separate at its midline We didn’t test our planes until the actual trial In the small-scale trials and other prototypes, the planes had crashed and the noses were destroyed, causing the planes to fail Prototype compared to final models

Solution Shown to the left is the full-scale model of the cardboard plane, the full-scale model of the floppy plane, and the paper prototype of the plane These are the final models

Instructions for Building the Large-Scale Model Fold in half hot-dog style (vertical) to have a midpoint. Fold the top 2 corners down so they line up on the the first center fold. This will form the nose of the plane.. Fold the plane in half vertically again (on the original line) so that the flaps from step 3 are on the inside of the fold. Now, fold each half of the flap down to the outside diagonally. Repeat step 4 for each side of the plane. Finally, perk up the flaps to fully expose the wings of the plane. Large-scale distance airplane on the bottom

Data Tables Upscale Floppy Plane Data Upscale Cardboard Plane Data Trial 1 Trial 2 Trial 3 Average 4.0 m 7.1 m 6.0 m 5.7 m Upscale Cardboard Plane Data Trial 1 Trial 2 Trial 3 Average 13.6 m 15.7 m 15.6 m m 14.97 m

Videos Video of the small prototype plane Video of the large-scale cardboard plane