Engineer a Glider Activity
We’ll take inspiration from nature and the engineering design process to become aerospace engineers and create gliders! Gliders can be flown outdoors or indoors for endless fun.
Materials:
- Paper plates
- Paper (copy, construction, paper grocery bags, newspaper, any kind will do!)
- Scissors
- Glue or tape
- Art supplies of your choice to decorate
- Paper clips for weight (optional)
- Measuring tape or ruler (optional)
Instructions:
- Cut a section the length of the paper plate, as wide as you would like, as the mid section (body) of your glider.
- Use the scraps to create wings!
- If you are making a paper airplane, you can use this template or create one of your own!
- If using the template, fold in order of the numbers and in the direction of the arrows.
- Decorate and fly!
Think Like an Engineer:
- Will adding the weight of a paperclip change how my glider flies? Does the placement of the paperclip matter (on the wings vs on the nose)?
- How many inches can my glider fly? How can I improve it to make it fly farther?
- If I make two gliders from the same materials, will they fly the same or differently?
