Part 2. Designing, building, and testing a paper plane
The problem commenced with a scenario about Qantas (a
major Australian airline) seeking the students’ assistance
in developing educational material for its Longreach
(Queensland) museum. The students’ challenge was to design
and build a paper plane that would stay in the air for
as long as possible.
Prior to students’ working the problem, a brief class
discussion took place on the constraints that had to be
met in designing and testing their plane to ensure these
were understood. The students were also reminded of
the engineering design processes they had used in the
previous problem by revisiting the engineering story
book, Engibear’s Dream (King 2013), which proved a
popular contextual reminder of the design process and
the need to progressively record designs, observations,
and redesigns. The basic “Engineering Design Model”
(adapted from pbs.org) comprising Problem, Brainstorm,
Design, Build, Test, Redesign, leading iteratively to Solution,
was discussed prior to the working of the problem,
with students labeling the model in their workbooks.
Students were reminded, “When testing your planes,
you can be thinking about ways to improve it because
we will have a chance to redesign and retest”.
Students were presented the following problem in
their workbooks, together with safety information: (a)
You will be working in groups of 3 or 4; (b) You will all
get to make and fly your own plane; (c) Your plane is to
be made from a single A4 sheet of paper; (d) Your plane
is to be hand-launched; (e) Your plane is to be designed
to stay in the air for as long as possible. Distance and
speed are not as important as length of flight; (f ) You
will time your flight using a stop watch; and (g) You will
have the chance to redesign your plane and try again to
see if you can increase the time it stays in the air. The
students were to record their responses in their workbooks
including sketching and labeling the measurements
of their design, their plane’s time in the air, a
description of how it had been launched, and their observations
about its flight path and the way it landed.