Glider's Design Competition part 3

Today is the day for the Glider's competition. Before the competition starts, we did some modifications to it. We added more weight at the nose of the glider. Then we throw a few more times to make sure our glider is at its best. 

This is our Glider (Final)

And the individual parts of the glider

This is the main body of the glider. The extra weight is already attach to the nose of the glider.

There are 2 event for the competition. First is to compete which the precision landing of the glider, which is to see the distance of the landing spot of the glider and from the target. The nearer the glider is from the target, the more points the team will be awarded. And is based on the average distance from 3 throws. For this segment, our team win second place. We managed to get a good start during the first throw, but for the second and third throw, the results are good but not good as the first throw. 

The other event for the competition is to compete how far the glider can travel before landing/crashing. Again the result is based on the average of 3 throws. Our team again win second place. We again manage to get a good start, with the highest record among all the throws. We also do pretty well for the 2nd and 3rd throw, but just not good as the first throw.  

Glider's Design Competition part 2

During the whole of week 15, we were experimenting on propellers, to see whether propellers will actually help our glider to glide further. 

The material for the propeller : 

1. Recycled paper clips
2. Scotch tapes

Since all the above materials are found common in house, so the cost for this part is totally free. 

We attach the propeller to the tip of the glider. 

To attach the propeller to the tip of the glider, we first use those thumbtacks as a rotating support. Then we add a little blue-tacks  at the rotating support's tip. This is to prevent the propeller from flying out. 

After we attached to the glider, its time for us to have a test run. While during the test flight process, we realize that the glider does not glide as far and as well as the one before we attach the propeller. We were suspecting that the total combine weight of the propeller and the rotating axis cause the front of the glider to be heavy, and thus causing it to lose velocity when it glides in the air. We try different type of rotating axis, to find out which type does not affect the gliding process as much as possible. But we are not able to solve the problem. In the end, we just do it without the propeller.

Since gliders will smash into the walls from time to time, the head of the glider will be broken. In order to solve this problem, I added some simple supports to the nose of the glider. This is to help support the nose so as to prevent the nose to receive a lot of the impact. 

The enhance nose

I tried to fly it, but it will do stunts instead. Then we add some blue-tack to the nose. This is to balance out the weight, and to give it more glide. After we added, the glider glides very smoothly. Also, we realize that the speed of the glider increase once we add the nose support. 

The material used for the nose support

1. Remaining foam board.

For this, I used double sided tape, to attach the nose support to the nose of the glider. With the nose support, it does really help to absorb the impact, and also to prevent the nose from breaking.

Glider's Design Competition

During the 2 weeks break, our team went back to school to discuss about our glider. Before when we went back to meet, we went to get the materials that for the glider.

The following material that we used are: 

1. One sheet of foam
2. A box of Plasticine
3. Pencil and papers
4. Penknife.

Total price (one sheet of foam, and box of plasticine) : $3 only.

During the discussion, we research on how the glider should look like. After we get the rough idea of how a glider should look like, we then draw rough sketches to see how the plane looks like. After we confirm with the design, we then trace out each individual part of the glider and then we cut them out as templates. After we managed to get the templates out, we did some rough gliding sessions by cutting out the shape out on those recycled foam boards. For our glider, we did not use any scotch tapes or glue. We cut slips and we slot the parts into the different slips. We slowly experiment with it, by adding more weights, which is the plasticine, to allow it to be stable and also to allow it to glide further. 

We first added some weight at the tip of the glider, which is the nose. This allow it to glide a bit, but we encountered one problem: the plane keep doing stunts like spinning 360 before it crash. To solve, we added some more weights, but this time is place on both side of the wing. This improves it as it stable the whole glider itself, but the glider did not go far because of the weight. Then we went to research more about glider design itself again, then we realize we can expand the wing span of the plane, to allow it to have the maximum lift. We then recreate a new wing for the glider. And this time round, the surface area of the wing is much more larger then the original. 

After we had everything in place, we try to glide it, but it failed. the whole glider tilted and it spins again. We then again add plasticine at the nose to give the front more weight. But again the same result happens. Then melvin went to grab more plasticine and stick it at the nose of the glider. Then we give it a go again. And this time round, the result was perfect. It glides very far. 

Here is our 1st success test glide

Because we kept on testing, the glider keep knocking onto the walls and in the end, our 1st prototype the nose broke. This is due to the large amount of weight at the front. We then return back to our work place and we come up with the same design, prototype 2. Since we know that to keep the glider glide the furthers, we need to add weight in front. Then we added weights at the nose of the glider using plasticine. We then shape the plasticine according to the nose of the plane. And we give it another go.

Here is our 2nd test glide

This time round, the nose of the plane is much more durable. But because we are happy with the result, we keep flying it, and thus finally the body of the glider gave away and prototype 2 was destroyed again. Then we bring home and we make a better one, with cleaner edges etc. 

Here is our final version.

We also thought of adding some supports to the main body since the main body of the glider is quite weak compare to the rest of the parts. This is to prevent the glider to be destroyed easily when it bumps into walls or had a crash land.

This activity taught us how to create our own foam glider. In the past, we only buy and we fix it and play it, but we do not know how was it created. And also, this activity is very interesting as we get to "play" in when we test the glider. 

Reflection on Propulsion Demonstration - Chong Yun Xiang

A few lessons ago, we had an activity on propulsion. This is to get us a better understanding on how propulsion works in engines. For that activity, we were given a few materials, paper, scizzors, balloon and a ping pong ball. Our main objective is to propel the ping pong ball as high as possible using the limited materials provided.

We had a few ideas. Our first idea, was to use the paper cone as a funnel, then use the air in the balloon to propel the ping pong ball upwards, just like the engine of a jet fighter. When it uses after burner, the ends of the engine will cave in, creating a smaller hole which will produce more energy to push the plane forward. We rolled the paper a few times, trying to find the better size for the funnel. In the end, we settled for a shorter funnel length, thinking that the distance will be short enough for the air to propel the ball upward. The longer the length, the further the air has to travel, which will lose energy as it travels.

But it turns out that the structure for the funnel was not strong enough for it to last when we release the air in the balloon. Thus it made us realize that we need a strong structure to sustain the energy of the air coming out of the balloon.

Our next idea was to stick the ping pong ball at the mouth of a full blown balloon, then squeeze the balloon to force the air out of it, which will shoot the ping pong ball forward. With the amount of air in the balloon and the amount of pressure that was exerted beneath the ball, it should be able to generate enough lift and energy to push the ball into the air, but we failed to be able to carry out our idea. The ball refused to move no matter the amount of pressure we generated on the sides of the balloon.

In the end, we put in too much strength on the balloon until it burst. Even though we failed and had a good laugh about our mistakes, we did learn that the main reason why our second idea did not succeed was due to friction and resistance. The balloon failed to shoot out despite the pressure was due to friction that prevented the balloon from moving.

Thus this propulsion activity taught me a few important things. The structure must be strong enough to be able to hold the air inside and friction will reduce movement.

Reflection on Propulsion - Cheng Yong

The engine demonstrates how loud the surrounding environment can become when combustion created enormous engine power enough for us to feel the amount of needed to drive airplanes. Inside the room, i can feel the push of the engine even though only the sound of it is reaches us considering that we are protected from the engine from both ears and temperature. I wondered how does it felt to be even closer for the teacher operating the demonstration.

To think that compressed air can be so strong when facing ignition drive airplane engines of real life is still something that never came to my thought. This makes me think of the fan section that was used for the engine, as explained it surely isn't something i want to use for my home fan as it contains enough power to kill. Also, the size of the engine looks small in comparison to the power it produced as the room used for demonstration is even smaller than the classroom used to teach us.

Reflection On the Propulsion Game

Few weeks ago, we had our in class activity: Propulsion game. The purpose of this activity was to allow us to understand how propulsion works in engine. We were given set of materials for the class activity: a balloon, papers and ping pong ball. The objective is simple, all we need to do is to send the ping pong ball as high up as possible using those materials. 

We started off by rolling the paper into a cone shape and also blowing the balloon up. After the balloon was blown to a suitable size, we then place the paper cone into the balloon mouth. Once everything is in place, we then put the ping pong ball into the cone. What we were doing is to allow the air from the balloon to escape and enters from the end of the cone. This is to generate enough lift for the ping pong ball to float. However, this idea was not very helpful as we cannot get the ping pong ball to lift high enough.

We then slowly discuss what other ways to solve the problem. Then we came up with the idea of placing the ping pong ball directly in the mouth of the balloon after it was blown up. After all is in place, we tried to force the air out of the balloon, by exerting force on the balloon. Why we did this is to force the air to rush out as fast as possible, to generate the maximum lift for the ping pong ball. However, we encountered problems. The ping pong ball just stuck there and we cant force the air out. 

This is the video of our first attempt using the balloon method: 

We even had to force the balloon out ourselves, which turns out to be a failed method. The whole class did have a good laugh because of the method we use. 

We never give up. We continue with that method, hoping that it will work. We then place the ping pong ball again at the mouth of the balloon. We then try to do it slowly, preventing the balloon from bursting. But we were wrong. The balloon eventually burst, causing a loud bang in class and everyone was again having a great laugh because of it.

Here is the second try of the method, and also the bursting of the balloon. 

Vincent Chua thoughts on PROPULSION DEMONSTRATION.

During the lesson of propulsion, me and my class was given a chance to view and observe an turbine engine that provides the aircraft the energy for flight. Its a really valuable experience for me as its such a rare opportunity to get to observe how it works in a controlled environment.

We proceeded over to the lab where the engine is. An explanation was given and this is how the engine actually works. First the engine is started and the turbine in the engine starts to rotate. The rotation of the turbines results in air in the surrounding to be suck into the engine and compressed. Then the air is transferred to the burner, where the ignition takes place. The compressed air and fuel ignited produces a large amount of heat and energy that will provide the propulsion required in flight.

I was suprised that there was actually an silencer installed in the engine. The sound of the engine is still really loud and we got to where earmuffs to protect our ear. To add on the engine is considered a scaled down version. Imagine it at the size the engine from an actual aircraft that generates more power. The sound produce would be even louder.