Simple Planes: Design Your own Plane

10/26/2019

Our Assignment

1. Design Problem: You need to design an airplane that can fly. More specifically:

A. A fast plane: My "Blue Bolt 10" reached 1200 MPH. Can anyone beat that?

B. A funky plane for your favorite artist or celebrity: This person is eccentric and wealthy - they want something that will really stand out and be unique!

C. A military plane: There is a lot....a lot of $$$ in making things for the military. It will need to be fast, maneuverable, an armed for a specific purpose.

D. Design the largest plane: How will you get all of that weight in the air?

E. A fun plane for your future, famous self: What kind of plane would you want you and your friends to fly around in?

E. Come up with your own design problem: Maybe you'd be happy just to make something that can stay in the air?

2. Research and Brainstorm: This game is physics based. Designs that work in the real world will work here. Use your knowledge of airplanes today! But there are also some basics.

Design/Test/Evaluate (This step is repeated). I repeated it eight times before my machine took flight. My plane seemed to want to take a nose dive and blow up before takeoff. Then I tried a million different things - often undoing what I had done because it made the problem worse or created a new problem.

Develop a new design problem: If your plane flies, you can come up with a new design problem. Perhaps you want your plane to be bigger, faster, or more maneuverable. Perhaps you to design a plane for the military. Whatever your goals, keep designing.

Share/Publish: We will have 2-3 class periods to complete this project. Then you will post a screenshot of your plane.

The Four Forces of Flight!

The History of Flight (Design process over time!)

Standards: ISTE 4A: Students know and use a deliberate design process for generating ideas, testing theories, creating innovative artifacts or solving authentic problems.
ISTE 4C: 4cStudents develop, test and refine prototypes as part of a cyclical design process.