Giant Paper Airplane Engineering Challenge
Learn basic aeronautical principles by folding and testing different paper airplane designs, culminating in a distance or accuracy competition.
- Takes
- 1 hr
- Your setup
- 10 min prep
- Ages
- Ages 7–11
- Mess
- No mess
- Cost
- Free
- Where
- Outdoors
How to do it
- 1Research 3-4 different paper airplane designs (e.g., dart, stealth, tumbler).
- 2Follow the instructions carefully to construct one of each design.
- 3Test each plane outdoors. Measure the flight distance using the ruler/tape measure.
- 4Discuss which design flew best and why (e.g., weight, wing size, thrust).
- 5Hold a final tournament to see which plane can fly the farthest or land closest to a target.
What they're practising
- Aeronautics Introduction
- Following Complex Diagrams
- Iterative Design
- Measurement