Introduction: Paper Flight: a Paper Airplane Workshop

By Lesley STEAM Learning Lab
About: The Lesley STEAM Learning Lab is a center designed to research new opportunities for learning through engagement and inquiry-based exploration. In addition to his work with Lesley, Dr. Goldowsky is principal…

Paper Flight was developed as a workshop for out-of-school time educators, and it is easily adaptable to other educational settings. It uses paper airplanes, parachutes, and rockets as the basis for engaging design challenges, and to help build an intuitive understanding of the physics of air and flight.

The Paper Flight activities work well for remote learning, since all materials are readily available, and students do not need to have exactly the same materials.

The activities are divided into five sessions, however, the investigations can be extended well beyond this format. The first session, A Paper Airplane Challenge is outlined here, the other sessions are outlined in separate Instructables.

Paper Flight

  1. Paper Airplane Challenge: What is the best plane?
    • (Extension: A Very Simple Paper Airplane)
    • (Extension: A Cardboard Paper Airplane Launcher)
  2. Observing and Recording Paper Airplane Flight
  3. Paper Parachutes
  4. Paper Airplane Challenge: Making Planes That Will Not Fly
  5. Straw Rocket Challenge

Supplies

  • Paper (8 1/2" x 11" printer paper is a good starting point, although students may want to experiment with other types of paper as they go)

  • Tape

  • Scissors

  • Pen or pencell (ideally a couple of colors)

  • Paper Clips (optional)

Step 1: Paper Airplane Challenge

Paper airplanes make for a fun and accessible design challenge. There are endless possible designs to start with, and they are easy to build, test, and improve. As students modify their designs they will be dealing with many aspects of aerodynamics, as well as working with the design/engineering process.

Below are suggestions for introducing the design challenge, and issues to consider as you plan and lead the activity.

Step 2: Design Challenge or Competition?

Some students will enjoy a competition: who can make the best paper airplane? Other students, especially if they have never made a paper plane before, may find a competition offputting. Instead of a competition, you can frame the activity as a design challenge: how can you improve your design? You should decide which approach will work best for your group.

Step 3: Who Knows How to Make a Paper Airplane?

Don't assume everyone knows how to make a paper airplane from memory, or that everyone has built a paper airplane before. Be sure to help students who need assistance, and have a basic pattern or instructions available (use A Very Simple Paper Airplane: or see Resources).

Step 4: What Makes a Paper Airplane "the Best"?

If you search the web for "world's best paper airplane" you get thousands of hits. But what is "best"? Have students discuss what might be considered best. How many different criteria can they think of? Some possible criteria include distance, speed, accuracy, flight time, or interesting acrobatics.

As a group, you can decide on the criteria for a competition. Alternatively, everyone can set their own goals for improving their own planes.

Step 5: Build, Test, Improve

Give students time to build and test their paper airplanes. The goal is for students to learn from the tests, and to use the information to modify and improve their design. This is an iterative process: ideally, each round of testing will provide new information, leading to new ideas and new improvements, which leads to another round of testing. Give time for the planes to evolve.

You can periodically discuss ideas and results with individual students and/or gather for a group check-in. What sorts of changes did students make? Why? What can you learn from these changes about how airplanes work?

Step 6: Measuring and Recording Results

How you will measure the results? Students may raise this issue, or you can wait and discuss this later.
You might decide to judge results "by eye" or to use a measuring tool. What tools could be used? A watch with a second hand? A ruler? Some other tool?

How will you record the results? Coming up with good ways to record data, and to keep track of your experiments is a necessary skill for scientists and engineers. The Instructable, Observing and Recording Paper AirplaneFlight, has more ideas on how to discuss and record the flight patterns of paper airplanes.

Step 7: Discuss the Design Process

As a wrap up you can hold a discussion to share results and think about your work as engineries and designers.

There is no single "right" description of an engineering or design process — there are many variations, descriptions, and diagrams on the web (see resources). All include some variation on the key steps of identifying the problem or goal, developing a potential solution, testing the solution, and using the information from the testing to continue the process. The questions below can help organize a discussion about the students work, and relate it to the key steps of the design/engineering process:

1. What aspect of your plane did you try to improve, or what problem did you work on solving?

(Identifying the problem or challenge is the first step of a design or engineering project)

2. What is one solution you tried? What was your reasoning?

(Coming up with a potential solution is a creative leap, but remember — it may or may not work out as you predict)

3. What happened when you tested your potential solution?

(Try it. Did it work? Whether or not the test was successful, it will give you ideas for further improvement!)

4. What did you do next?

(Iteration is key to this process: improve, test, improve, test… You may even find yourself going back to step 1 and re-defining the problem.)

Step 8: Share Your Designs

A big part of science and engineering is sharing results, publishing findings, and collaborating with others.
Have students share their plane designs with each other. Have them talk with family members or friends to gather more designs.

Make a book, an Instructable, or video instructions for the different models, and share photos in the Discussions section at the end of this Instructable!

Step 9: Resources

Design/Engineering Process (There are many variations on the web, some far more complex than others!)

https://pbskids.org/designsquad/parentseducators/w...

https://www.nasa.gov/audience/foreducators/best/ed...

Physics of paper airplane flight:

http://isaac.exploratorium.edu/~pauld/activities/f...

https://www.nasa.gov/pdf/544375main_PS1_Controllin...

Plane Instructions (search Instructables or the web for thousands more!)

Basic:

https://www.instructables.com/A-Very-Simple-Paper-...

https://www.exploratorium.edu/exploring/paper/air...

https://www.instructables.com/The-Best-Paper-Airp...

Unusual:

https://www.exploratorium.edu/science_explorer/hoo...

https://www.instructables.com/Walkalong-Glider-Mad...

(And lots more if you search for "Paper Airplanes" on Instructables!)

This work is made possible by support from STAR, a Biogen Foundation Initiative. The team at Lesley supporting this initiative includes faculty and staff in the Lesley STEAM Learning Lab, Science in Education, the Center for Mathematics Achievement, and other related Lesley University departments and programs.