Tasmanian Science Talent Search
Technology Challenge 2017
History of Flight Challenge
Preamble
The history of flight has evolved from an envy of the freedom of birds to massive metal cylinders
carrying hundreds of people over huge distances. This challenge seeks to encapsulate some of the
evolution of the heavier-than-air machines that has led to modern flight.
The History of Flight challenge is in three stages and is based on mono-wing and multi-wing gliders
and model aeroplanes using cardboard and paper constructions, flying indoors in a gymnasium or a
multi-purpose room. (NB: For further information see page 6 of the TSTS Information booklet
available on the TSTS page of the STAT web site – www.stat.org.au )
In brief
K-2 challenge: Make a monoplane glider using corrugated cardboard, drinking straws adhesive tape
and glue only. The gliders will be throw-launched by hand; no catapults or woomeras or other
devices.
Grade 3-4 challenge: Make a model mono-wing glider that pays homage to George Cayley, using
paper, cardboard, drinking straws, bamboo skewers, toothpicks, string, adhesive tape and glue only.
The gliders will be throw-launched by hand; no catapults or woomeras or other devices.
Grade 5-6 challenge:
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EITHER - make a mono-wing, rubber band powered model plane using only paper,
cardboard, drinking straws, adhesive tape, glue and enough wire to make an undercarriage,
if required. The propeller and mount may be hand-made or purchased and the rubber
bands may be any type of commercial rubber band(s), elastic or model aeroplane rubber.
OR - make a multi-wing rubber band powered model aeroplane using only paper, cardboard,
adhesive tape, glue and enough wire to make an undercarriage, if required. The propeller
and mount may be hand-made or purchased and the rubber bands may be any type of
commercial rubber band(s), elastic or model aeroplane rubber.
Note: The planes will be assisted at the launch by a moving trolley rolling along a launching
ramp angled at about 20 degrees. This will be provided.
Grade 7-8 challenge: make a multi-wing rubber band powered model aeroplane using only paper,
cardboard, adhesive tape, glue and enough wire to make an undercarriage, if required. The
propeller and mount may be hand-made or purchased and the rubber bands may be any type of
rubber band(s), elastic or model aeroplane rubber.
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Note: The planes will be assisted at the launch by a moving trolley rolling along a launching
ramp angled at about 20 degrees. This will be provided.
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Conditions
a. Students must use only those materials listed alongside each challenge.
b. Students must adhere to the size limitations.
c. Students need to make their rubber band-powered flying machine so that it may be
launched from the official launching ramp.
d. The rubber band-powered flying machines will be assisted at the launch by a moving trolley
rolling along a launching ramp angled at about 20 degrees. This will be provided.
e. Students will have three attempts to make the machine fly. The result will be based on the
best attempt.
f. Students should keep a log book of their progress in reaching the final design and should
present a report which contains:
 the log book;
 statements of understanding of the roles of pioneers in the history of flight; and
 information about how machines are able to fly.
g. Students will be judged on:
 the distance of the machine’s flight;
 the quality of the log book and report; (NB These are two different items)
 the quality of the machine’s construction; and
 the flying qualities of the machine such as lift and glide.
It could be a research investigation?
If students cannot get the rubber band aircraft to fly, they will have reached the same stage as 95%
of science/technology experiments. They won’t have failed. They will not yet have succeeded in their
objective.
The project must not be lost.
The project could then be changed to a research investigation by:
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Including a hypothesis – we decided to do a certain thing because ...
Including the technology event log book
Including the technology event report
Reflecting on why the project has not yet been successful
Indicating the next two or three stages of development if time were available.
Note: Students should consult the research investigation section of the TSTS guide.
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Tasmanian Science Talent Search: Technology Challenge 2017
Where does the challenge fit in the overall scheme of things?
Physical sciences
Foundation:
the way objects move
(letters, flying seeds)
Year 2:
push and pull affects how objects move (throwing and launching)
Year 4:
Forces can be exerted by one object on another
Year 7:
Change and unbalanced forces
Year 8:
Energy causes changes within systems
Science skills
Based on the skill of measuring and the mathematical skill of discovering proportions, the flight
problem demands the application of:
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Hypothesising
Controlling variables
Interpreting data and the
Communicating skills in
o Creating tables of information
o Graphing and
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Several forms of writing
History
Year 2
The Past in the Present:
Changes in the look and capacity of airplanes
Year 3
Community and Remembrance:
History skills
Placing people and events in a chronological sequence
The Sopwith Camel of WWI
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Time Lines
Tasmanian Science Talent Search: Technology Challenge 2017
Starting point:
Is the challenge a problem?
Is the challenge an exercise or a series of exercises?
From paper planes - delta wing dart
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From existing models
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Oblong, square, triangle
Paper or card
Symmetry and asymmetry
Small changes- staples
Wings up, wings down
Changes in mass
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From flying letters
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Which letters in a name fly?
Properties of the best fliers
Symmetry
Shape- X and A
o Manipulating shape
Cheap monoplane gliders (K-2)
o Small changes- paper clips
Launched fliers
Model and historic fliers (Gr 5-6) –
Sopwith Camel?
o measurement
o fuselage length
o wing and tail sizes
o wing position
o tail shape & position
o mass
o control surfaces
From other rubber band vehicles
Exploring rubber band power through:
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From kites
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Symmetry
Angle of attack
High pressure/low pressure and lift
Use of a tail
Using skills to discover:
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From people
Sir George Cayley, Baronet, engineer,
inventor, father of flight, had a man aloft at
about the time Tasmania’s white settlement
was starting.
Maybe it’s a research investigation
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The PET bottle (cotton reel, 1L tin can,
4L paint can) roller
The Lou Vee Vehicle
o Skeletal muscle models
Never a failure
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Strength of a paper stick
Bending cardboard effectively
The best rubber band
The most effective propeller
The most efficient wheels;
by
 Controlling variables
 Interpreting data
 Creating tables of information
 Graphing
 Hypothesising
Tasmanian Science Talent Search: Technology Challenge 2017
Working from a paper plane
In a challenge to find the best paper plane, a range of imaginative designs should be explored but in
a quest to build a rubber band-powered flying machine, investigating a known distance flier could
save time. A paper dart, (delta wing) should be explored.
Starting with the one model will focus the investigation on the flight characteristic required in the
TSTS challenge – distance. A paper dart, with its delta wing characteristic, is:
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a known distance flier
easy to fold and replicate
easily adjusted for nose weight, closed fuselage, flaps up, flaps down
foldable in a range of differently weighted papers and cardboards.
Note: the first good unaltered dart becomes the control and must be kept for reference.
Working from flying letters
Squares of cardboard may be used to examine the flying qualities of different letters. Some letters
will fly long and others will fly like a boomerang but the fliers will all be symmetrical in at least one
plane.
Hint: cardboard milk containers are a good source as the square base makes a good starting point.
Explorations may start with:
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First letters of given and surnames
Comparisons of all letters in a name
Testing all the letters in the alphabet
Exploring launching techniques
Working from history
In the flight time line, where do heavier-than-air machines fit?
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The Montgolfier Brothers – lighter than air devices
Sir George Cayley – the curbed wing and other flying attributes
Laurence Hargrave (The man on the $20 note) – lifting capacity of a box kite
The Wright Brothers
Famous flying events - war machines
Breaking the sound barrier
Highest and longest flights
Working from models
Working from models provides a student with a glider or rubber band powered flier that works
immediately, however to meet the conditions of the technology challenge a student will have to
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discover why the commercial model works. This can then be applied to a cardboard and paper
model.
The skill to be employed immediately is measuring and then some consideration given to ratios;
length of body to length of wing for example, or position of the wings in proportion to the fuselage.
Working from a photographic “model” is a more advanced concept but it does give a student an
opportunity to link history to modern aircraft.
Starting points
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Construct a cheap commercial flying machine, make it fly, observe its flying characteristics,
examine its parts and dimensions and then recreate a version in the materials allowed.
o Work with gliders before graduating to rubber band-powered.
o Hint: a rubber band-powered flying machine must have gliding characteristics at the
end of its powered flight.
Find a picture (the more angles the better) of a favoured or famous or historically significant
flying machine and examine its details carefully. Measure proportions and translate them to
the size of the flying machine wanted. Construct one in the materials allowed.
A British Sopwith Camel as flown by Snoopy
A French Nieuport A17 not flown by the Red Baron
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Tasmanian Science Talent Search: Technology Challenge 2017
Controlling variables
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What is the strength of a paper or cardboard stick fuselage? Consider:
o size of material
o shape of stick (cylinder, triangle, square etc)
o length of stick
o diameter of stick
o type of tape
Which rubber band, or combination of bands give the best energy output?
o Is human anatomy a factor?
Interpreting data for a rubber band-powered PET roller
Rubber band power
How does the number of winds of a rubber band affect distance travelled?
The following results were said to have been obtained by the makers of a bottle rubber-band
powered roller.
Read the table carefully and then test the results with the machine you have made.
No of winds
100
150
200
300
Distance travelled
100 mm
150 mm
750 mm
1.5 m
Testing
Graph the observed results against the proposed results and then interpret the results by:
a. Comparing the observations with the proposition and formulate a reason for the
difference.
b. Examining the test results carefully, predicting what a 350 wind might be and testing the
prediction.
Hypothesising
Skeletal muscle is composed of bundled fibres. If rubber bands could be bundled, they might work
like skeletal muscles. Tied loops would be a simple form of bundling but plaiting could be another
form.
Test this.
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The Lou-Vee Car – a rubber band flier (?)
Lou-Vee car minimum Components:
1 sheet A4 paper, 2 drinking straws, 4 paper clips, sheet of cardboard, rubber band
In brief
The Lou-Vee car is a rubber band-powered vehicle which uses a sheet of A4 paper as a stick. The
paper is wound around a pencil and taped and the pencil removed.
A folded piece of cardboard on the stick is an engine mount.
Unwound paper clips are threaded through pieces of drinking straw and taped to the cardboard disc
wheels. The front wheels are wider apart that the rear wheels.
An unwound paper clip is threaded through a drinking straw (cotton reel in the picture) and onto the
propeller.
A paper clip is attached to the rear of the stick and a rubber band(s) fastened between the two
“engine” paper clips.
Wind and let go- maybe hundreds of winds.
Convert the Lou-Vee car to a flying machine
Problem 1: How will it glide?
Problem 2: How will it glide with a propeller up front?
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Launching the rubber band-powered flying machine
The launch pad:
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Is 750 mm long
Is 130 mm (approx) high (this might determine propeller size)
Has pads on the front and back allow the sides to be clamped to a desk top
Allows for chocks to be placed under the front pads to raise it to different angles (note: 20
degrees is quite a steep angle)
Has a separate protractor which may be placed at the rear to give an accurate measurement
of angles.
Although 30° is an optimum angle, the ramp will be set at 20° for indoor use.
The energy is provided by a stretched rubber band with the launcher moving at about arm-throwing
speed.
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Tasmanian Science Talent Search: Technology Challenge 2017
Achieving understanding
At the end of the exploration and attempts at making a flying machine, whether it be a
paper dart of a rubber band-powered bi-plane students should have an understanding of the
basic principles of flight.
 Planes fly when the air pressure below the wings is greater than the air pressure
above the wings and lift is created.
 Air pressure changes are created by having air passing faster over the top of the
wing than below the wing. This creates a low pressure zone above and a high
pressure zone below, achieving lift.
 When landing a plane, the mass of the aircraft and the angle of the elevators
overcome the lift created by the curved wing.
 A curved wing profile creates the condition for air passing faster over the top of the
wing.
 Wing flaps increase the length of the curved profile creating lift conditions for
takeoff.
 The greatest amount of energy for a flight is needed at the take off.
 Planes use less energy at take off if they are assisted to gain speed, e.g. engines or
catapults.
 A vertical take-off requires huge amounts of energy
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Tasmanian Science Talent Search: Technology Challenge 2017
SOLO Assessment
The Solo Taxonomy of Biggs and Collis
SOLO is the acronym: Structure of the Observed Learning Outcomes and is a hierarchy of five stages.
Pre-structural: unconnected information or irrelevant information.
Uni-structural:
a simple and obvious response; or more than one response but unrelated to
each other.
Multi-structural:
several relevant responses but missing a connection to the whole.
Relational:
relevant responses relate to the whole, but not a complete or near complete
explanation.
Extended abstract:
all relevant responses are made within and beyond the subject in question
extending into reasonable generalisations might be made.
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Tasmanian Science Talent Search: Technology Challenge 2017
Possible SOLO responses to the question:
How is it that a winged aeroplane is able to fly?
Note: when assessing the level of the responses it must be remembered that all answers must relate
to the principles of flight. A well-structured response to the question might rate highly in a
grammatical or creative writing sense but not rate highly in a science sense.
Pre-structural: magic; God does it; it has engines; it has a pilot; its wings flap
Uni-structural: The plane gets up speed before taking off.
Its engines give it power.
The wings help it get off the ground
Multi-structural: Combinations of the uni-structural answers; or
When the engines make the plane travel down the runway, they create an airflow that helps
it lift off the ground.
When the air pressure above the wings is greater than the air pressure below the wings the
plane will lift.
When the plane is travelling fast, the pilot pulls on the steering wheel helping it lift off the
ground.
Relational:
The plane has to have enough energy through its engines to create speed along the
ground. This can create a low pressure zone above the wings and a high pressure zone below
the wings to create lift.
The low pressure zone above the wings can be created by the plane racing down the runway
and by having the wing flaps down increasing the air pressure below the wings. When the
flier pulls back on the controls, the nose lifts and air pressure below the wings pushes the
plane into the air.
Extended abstract: Reference to areas beyond an airplane’s flight would show extension e.g.
Flight requires two things: thrust and lift. Thrust is the forward motion provided by a
propeller or jet engine or catapult. The engines move the plane forward instead of up. The
wing provides the lift. It has a special shape called an aerofoil. This means that in cross
section it bulges more on top than on the bottom.
As the plane gathers speed the air that goes over the top of the wing has to travel farther
than the air going underneath, so it is forced to move faster.
Faster-moving air has less pressure (Bernoulli principle). So the area above the wing has less
pressure than the area below the wing, creating lift.
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