Paper Helicopters

One of my memories of going to the local picnic races as a child is making paper helicopters from discarded race tickets. They were so much fun to drop from the top of the grandstand. This was also one of my first exposures to science as I, my brother and sister, and cousins, experimented with different designs. 

On Friday, I decided to introduce Rua to my childhood sport. First we watched videos on Youtube which showed us how to make paper helicopters. The great thing about Youtube is the students can watch at their own pace and go over any instructions they miss.

Then we used a template to make a small and large paper helicopter each. The only difference between the two variations was their size.

The children dropped the two helicopters at the same time to see which fell the fastest.

They were very creative at finding different places to drop them from.

This 'play' reinforced an important principle of experimentation. Tests need to be run in many different conditions to see if the results are the same.

It was also important to repeat the tests several times. In our discussions, most, but not all students, found the smaller helicopter dropped faster. This variation in result happens for grown up scientists too. Students need to understand this so they can be critical when considering science reports in the media. A new finding based on a single study isn't proof of an effect.

Finally the students looked at the effect of varying their designs. Some changed the wing shape or added more paper clips, others compared extra large and extra small versions of the helicopters.