Glider Event for Distance and Accuracy
Submitted by Paul LaChance (article below)
I wanted to tell everyone about my experience. My nephew goes to a Montessori school and my father and I went and made
hand launched gliders with the kids. Luckily it was a small class of 7. I used the MM Glider Tech Stinger as the project plane. It is a
10 inch hand launch glider, is now used by Boy Scouts of America, and only costs $1 per plane.
I prepared in advance by pre-sanding all the parts, gluing the dihedral joint and pre-building a sample to show them what they
would have when done. We only had about 2 hours for the entire project. With Dollar Tree super glue in hand, we started the
class. We explained the names of all the parts, put plastic on the tables, and plastic gloves on the kid's hands. We built the
planes and had the kids decorate them with highlighters and sharpies.
Then off to the gym we went for the flying. We had the kids throw their planes one at a time to trim them out and made adjustments
as necessary and the true test began. We started out flying for max distance. The room we had was about 40' long with a standard
8' ceiling. We marked the floor at 2' and 3' intervals using a long tape for the 2' marks and a yard stick for the 3' marks. This taught
the kids that it is more accurate to measure with the longest too possible. As by 34' the 3' marks were off by almost a full foot.
Then the fun began.
The longest flight of the day by any of the kids was 33'. The next flights were a little different. The kids had to estimate how far they
would get on the next flight. Some of the kids got very close as they threw the planes very consistently. The others were far off as
you can imagine. They made three flights each for distance, estimating their distance on the last 2 flights. Next we went for spot
landing. This was interesting as well. Some of the kids threw very well and consistent and over flew the spot with excellent glides.
The closest to the spot was 1 foot throwing from about 15' away. Most of the planes over flew this mark with was exciting as that
meant the planes were gliding quite well. We gave the winners from the distance and spot landing $1 as a prize. You would have
thought they won a million dollars. These were 4th graders by the way. The boys and girls all had a great time as well as my father,
the teacher and myself. We brought a camera and had the teacher take pictures. Believe it or now, only a few pictures were taken
as the teacher was so excited and amazed by the little planes she just plain forgot to take many pictures.
My next attempt is to teach at the public school our 11 year old attends. His class has 22 kids, so I may try to recruit another
helper. It will be alot more challenging than the 7 kids were, but I learned a lot from my first attempt.
Sorry for the long post.
Paul LaChance