About the craft projects in Paper Airplanes:
In Paper Airplanes there are fifteen projects each featuring a different paper airplane or other flying thing to make. With Paper Airplanes you can make gliders, darts, stunt airplanes, and then go beyond planes with boomerangs, helicopters, and birds. Learn the basics of flying through the article in each project about a concept of aerodynamics and by performing the experiments featured with each project. Paper Airplanes also features games that you can play with the planes, articles on the history of flight, and tips on designing your own model of paper airplane.
Designed for ages 8 and up.
With supervision and reading help, younger children will enjoy these projects, too.
The projects in Paper Airplanes are:
- Needle Nose Dart - traditional folded dart made by every child
- Blunt Nose Dart - a sturdy dart that can be thrown hard
- Gliding Dart - glides well at low speeds and can also be launched with speed
- Steady Flier Glider - the simplest paper airplane to fold, flies well at low speeds
- Cambered Wing Glider - extra lift is produced with the cambered (curved) wing
- Flying Wing Glider - glides well at low speeds and is very stable
- Distance Champ Dart - flies a long distance with wings almost at the ideal 8 degree angle of attack
- Floating Wing Glider - can be launched at high speeds or low speeds
- Trapezoid Wing Glider - very sensitive to the effects of control surfaces, good for stunts
- Adaptable 'V' Dart - very stable and flies long distances, good for outdoors
- Soda Straw Flier - demonstrates control surfaces -- elevator, ailerons, rudder
- Design Your Own Airplane - design your own model of paper airplane based on what was learned in earlier projects
- Whirly Bird Copter - make a paper helicopter and learn about autorotation
- Tiny Boomerangs - make cardboard boomerangs that fly and return
- Origami Bird - ancient Japanese folded paper bird, it's wings flap as it flies
First twelve paper airplane project selections screen shot and
screen shot of three more projects of other things that fly
The articles included on the science of flight (aerodynamics experiments included) are:
- Air Resistance, learn about drag, the force that opposes the forward motion of airplanes
- Turbulence and Streamlining, see how the shape of an airplane affects the swirling of air around it
- Coanda Effect, the tendency of a fluid to hug the surface it flows over
- Bernoulli Principle, an important factor in creating lift
- Wing Shape and Lift, learn the principles of wing shape that affect lift
- Choosing a Wing Type, how aircraft designers choose the type of wing to use
- Angle of Attack, the angle the wing hits the air
- Balance, the balance of the center of gravity and center of lift in an airplane
- Stability, the three directions of stability -- roll, pitch, and yaw
- Dihedral Angle, position of the wings above or below horizontal
- Controls, about the controls used in aircraft -- rudder, elevator and aileron
- Launching and Adjusting Paper Airplanes, how to effectively launch and adjust controls on paper airplanes (based on what was learned in earlier projects)
- Helicopters, how helicopters develop lift with rotating wings
- Boomerangs, airfoils and the flight of boomerangs
- Other Flight Terms, definitions of a variety words related to flying
The articles included on the history of flight are:
- Dreams of Flight, the first step towards powered flight was the dream
- Making Things Fly, what ancient humans learned about thrown objects led to some basic concepts used in powered flight
- Kites, 4000 years of kite flying helped define the shape of wings
- Orthopters, a machine that flies by flapping wings like a bird
- Balloons, how balloon flight developed
- Dirigibles, a bit about steerable, powered balloons
- Cayley:Starting with Gliders, his systematic study of wings and lift
- Experimenting with Gliders, further glider experiments of Otto Lilienthal
- Early Experimenters in Powered Flight (Henson, Maxim), steam engines as the power source
- Putting It Together (Chanute, Langley), taking the flight research of individuals to develop powered flight
- The Wright Brothers, the first controlled, powered flight
- Using the Airplane, the rapid development of useful aircraft
- Helicopters, the development of helicopters and vertical flight
- Jets, the development of jet propelled flight
- Into Space, flight above and beyond the atmosphere
Look at some screen images from Paper Airplanes:
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