Yesterday I ran a one day event on flight with a small group of Engineeri Diploma Students.
The day focussed on building a simple paper / card plane to learn the basics, then using this knowledge to design, build and fly a balsa wood and clingfilm glider
I already have my own design of corrugated cardboard plane sold through www.kitronik.co.uk / The PopGlider, but I wanted something which wouldn't virtually gurantee a good flight with basic assembly, so I designed the Chunky Monkey (named after the Ben and Jerry's ice cream). It is a single sheet glider which can be photocopied onto standard 160gsm card, then assembled with a spot of glue and some sellotape, and weighted with a bit of plasticine. Carefully built it flies pretty well, not as well as PopGlider, but certainly good enough to demonstrate whether it was well built. The event yesterday emphasised the importance of Balance, Symmetry, Alignment and Quality of construction. Get it right and flights of 20 + metres are possible indoors.
So my rough and ready plane proved a better way to maximise the students experience precisely because something could go wrong if instructions were not followed, skills not learned, quality not maintained... A metaphor for life really!
