Students used their creativity, problem-solving skills, and knowledge of aeronautics to create powered paper airplanes
(TEL AVIV, Israel) December 12, 2018 – To take traditional paper airplane lessons to new heights, students across the country participated in the first-ever POWERUP Toys Powered Paper Airplane Challenge. The Challenge required students to fold and test powered paper airplanes built from a simple sheet of paper and powered by a POWERUP 2.0 Free Flight motor, which helped them learn about aeronautics, engineering, physics, and design.
The 2018 Powered Paper Airplane Challenge winners are:
First Place – Mike Benson’s 6th Grade science class from Our Lady of Grace in Edina, Minn.
Second Place – Suzanne Schedin’s 5th Grade class from Herold Pond Elementary School in Milford, N.H.
Third Place – Wendy Holland’s 4th Grade science class from Boone Grove Elementary School in Boone Grove, Ind.
“Paper airplane lessons, which have been a staple in the classroom, are an easy and fun way to teach physics, aeronautics, engineering, problem-solving, and more,” said Shai Goitein, CEO and Founder of Tailor Toys L.L.C, the company behind POWERUP Toys. “Seeing the students’ excitement when their designs flew was so rewarding.”
To participate in the Challenge, students learned about aeronautics, designed and folded paper airplanes, and tested out their designs using the battery powered POWERUP 2.0 Free Flight motor. Many students had a bumpy first flight with the POWERUP 2.0 Free Flight. To fix this, they identified which flight phenomena they experienced and determined what caused their paper airplane to crash. Was it a wing stall, a nose dive, or spiral dive? Did their plane fly upside down? Did it bank left or right? Knowing what went wrong helped students understand their design flaws and tweak their designs.
Once students were confident in their designs, teachers recorded students’ flights and uploaded the videos to Flight Deck, an online lesson community on the Workbench Platform that helps teachers discover and share projects using POWERUP Toys motors. Students were judged on the distance and accuracy of their flights, maximum duration or the flight, and design creativity.
Students competed for the chance to win POWERUP Toys products for their classrooms, including the POWERUP 3.0 app-controlled paper airplane motor, the POWERUP DART aerobatic app-controlled paper airplane motor, and the POWERUP X FPV app-controlled video-streaming airplane motor.
To see the POWERUP Toys products specially designed for STEM classrooms, visit: poweruptoys.com/pages/steam-educational-kits.
About POWERUP Toys
POWERUP Toys lets consumers of all ages expand their sense of play and experimentation by adding power to familiar paper airplanes. POWERUP Toys brings homemade paper airplanes into the future by adding next generation mobile controls, propulsion, and tools to take imagination to new heights.
###