Aviation Interested Student at Science Fair

I caught up with the student I had given some ideas to for a science fair project relating to designing and testing airfoil sections. He had designed the airfoil sections using a online program provided by NASA, I provided him with the foam cutting equipment I use for for model airplanes.

One wing section was mainly flat on the bottom, another was pretty much symmetrical, and a flat piece of foam was also tested. The airfoils were tested at three different speeds, lift force created was measured with an electronic force probe.

From the data obtained it appeared the results were what had been expected from the data outputted in the simulator program.

It was so much fun helping this young man and he seemed really excited to see me when I found him at the science fair.

Bill Kuhl
http://www.ideas-inspire.com


Be Sure to Read the First Article

Airfoils and Aviation Inspired Student

Comments on Projects I Wanted to Share

Recently I ran across some comments from various sources on a couple of the projects on my website Ideas-Inspire.com. Over the several years I have been sharing these projects through the Internet, I really do not receive much feedback. Some people have sent comments now that the website is in WordPress format and includes comment capability. I have been able to help a few people with minor problems they were having,but most feedback has been pretty good. In doing this everything has been an expense on my part, I do not complain because it does make me feel good. In the back of my mind I have thought about including some advertising on my blog and website to help pay for some of the cost. This blog now has some advertising, I sure hope this will not be a turn off to some people. 

Below are some of the comments I had found for a foam glider that I named as the "Hammer Down Catapult Glider" and to the Syringe Hydraulic Arm project. I had recently sent a sample kit to a teacher friend in India and the completed project was a big hit with the students.

Hi Bill,

I have read through the .pdf and like the design. The directions seem to be simple to follow as well. I really like the use of "trash" for most of the materials. I use a lot of "trash" in my classroom. I find it is much easier and middle school and high school students are funny to watch as they oooh and aaahh of their finds in my boxes of materials. I believe that I can work this into my next unit of force, motion, and energy. If I give it a try, I will report back with how the students did.

Thanks for sharing.    Susan  

Hi Bill,

Last year when teaching about forces I had a team of retired pilots that volunteered at the Pacific Aviation Museum at Pearl Harbor here on Oahu come in to talk about planes. They brought in pre-cut bamboo model airplanes for me to teach the kids about the parts of a plane. I read through the article and I love the pictures/directions. Looks simple and something I can incorporate this year even if I can't get that same group of volunteers to come in again. The kids loved learning about the forces of flight.

Bill,

Very detailed and intuitive article. I feel like the real learning would come out of the students being able to make their own glider, although this looks like no simple task, with plenty of room for error.

I can imagine going through all the motions and then being truly excited as me and my group of students run out to the schoolyard to test our gliders, only to find out that we didnt give the wing enough angle or something and the glider barely gets off the ground.

I suppose failure in this instance could be seen as a learning experience, but may also be discouraging and time consuming to have a bunch of grounded student gliders.

If all goes well, the activity could be a real blast. One could teach the physics of everything in great or sparse detail depending on the age group. Would you recommend this for all ages? If I were to teach my elementary students, would you recommend allowing them to build the gliders, or bringing in a few pre-built ones for them to fly before I go over the basic concepts of flight, motion, lift etc. with them?

Thanks for offering.

Hi Bill. I love the resources you share. My middle school kids are dying to do the foam glider activity. I printed the article out and gave it to a few of my second year Design and Engineering students for their review. I told them I wanted them to go through the article, try to visualize it, and then Tuesday next week, we will gather materials and have them be a test group to see how well they were able to build the glider from your directions.

Their next task then is to rewrite the directions in the areas where they were tripped up or found unclear. I’ve never seen a group of students more engaged in the actual process or reading an article and sharing suggestions and brainstormed ideas with one another.

I will ask them to write up formal feedback and provide their input here. What a great tool for students to read for meaning and purpose. I also love the idea they will be using the application process for solving a problem and finding a solution. I look forward to hearing how others did as well.

Wow! This is really cool! Thanks for sharing this. I'd like to say this will be a really great project for my students and my two sons, but who am I kidding, I want to make one for myself! The link gives very detailed instructions and pictures. Great post, it's amazing what you can make out of garbage.

Syringe Hydraulic Arm

This project is presented so well that anyone can do it. I love the steps shown with pictures and the materials are very easy to acquire. I can't wait to try it.

Thanks for providing this to all of us.  Adah

You are my hero Bill. This model is well done. I shared the article with my current Design and Engineering class, and of course they are begging to build it. Their comments included, “Wow! That looks so professional!” , “So, are you saying I can go to my local hardware store and buy the parts and make this for myself? Really?” , “Can I make one this year for extra credit?”

Bill Kuhl

http://www.ideas-inspire.com

Additional Resources

Foam Plate and Straw Gliders

Foam Jet II Foam Glider

Simple Glider Curriculum

Syringe Hydraulic Arm

Videos I Created

Pictures of ScienceGuyOrg Events 2012 - 3 minute video of the many activities that year

Fun With Foam Gliders - 9 minute video about inspiration and experiments with foam gliders

Flying Model Airplanes from Frozen Lake

Finding large open areas without trees is not easy where I live but one local lake provides a very large extremely flat area to fly from during the winter. Now if there was only an ice fishing shack available to wind the rubber motors when flying in the cold, it might be even more enjoyable. Yesterday the wind was light and I was off from work so I took the opportunity to fly from a frozen Lake Winona with two different rubber powered free flight model airplanes.

The larger of the airplanes is known as the Air Hare, this was a kit developed by two students over ten years ago as part of a program at the Eli Whitney Museum, and unfortunately I doubt it is available any longer. In 2002 I had a contest on my website to design an ideal beginner’s rubber powered model airplane. There were not many entries but all were very good designs. I built all of the airplanes and flew them both indoors and outdoors. Neil Dennis designed the first “Denny Dart” which has been a really popular beginners airplane that he sells kits for and gives away many.

Another airplane I flew is similar to the Blue Ridge Special that has been unavailable but might be available again. This small plane features a construction that makes the wing very rigid, whether that is needed in a small rubber model is questionable, the plane does seem to stay in trim better than most models this size however. Faster high-powered free flight needs this type of wing constructions to minimize flutter in the fast climb.

 I walked out on the ice that is solid enough to hold up trucks and wound the rubber motors in temperature that was just below freezing. The airplanes flew very well and the duration seemed comparable to what I saw in warmer weather but without actually having several timed flights from the different temperatures it is hard to know if the performance is less in cold weather. My comfort level was less with cold hands and after several flights on each plane I called it enough.

Related Articles

About the Air Hare

Neal Dennis and Denny Dart

Rigid Rubber Powered Model Airplane

Bill Kuhl

http://ideas-inspire.com

Efficiency and Model Aviation

One of the things in life that really gets me excited is when something is efficient; that is the biggest reason I drive a hybrid car, and enjoy model airplanes that stay airborne with minimum power sources. In looking through definitions I found statements like this; “performing or functioning in the best possible manner with the least waste of resources or effort”.  Much of my flying are model airplanes that are powered by a strip of wound elastic rubber a power source that is easily wasted if not used in a resourceful manner.

Simple Rubber Powered Plane Climbing Outdoors

In starting with simple model gliders you can learn about the concept of “lift over drag” or L/D. Gary Hinze created an excellent tutorial for use with simple gliders that will teach concepts such as L/D that can be found on my website. There is another article about building simple gliders from foam plates and straws. To be efficient the airplane needs to produce the lift needed to support the airplane in flight with the least amount of drag. In level flight the lift only needs to be equal to the weight of the airplane, excess will cause the airplane to climb.  

Gliding from Tutorial

Lift Over Drag

For a longer glide it will be important to reduce the amount of drag as much as possible. Drag is created by the lifting surfaces of the airplane and also by air flowing across all the surface of the airplane. Using the correct airfoil and amount of angle to the wind in the wing will help reduce drag. Reducing the weight of the glider means less lift is needed to be created to oppose the weight of the airplane pulling it down to the earth by gravity; it does not change the L/D but does mean it will glide slower down the glide path.


Adding Power to Glider

Now we add thrust to the airplane in the form of a loop of twisted rubber strip. The challenge is to get the airplane to fly as long as possible on the limited number of turns twisted in the rubber.  With a thinner strip of rubber more turns can be wound in the rubber strip before it breaks. The thinner rubber will have less of a twisting force to spin the propeller that provides thrust to fly the airplane. Also related is the size of the propeller, a thin strip of rubber will spin a larger propeller at a slower speed providing less thrust, if the airplane is very lightweight the thrust will be sufficient to keep the airplane airborne for a very long time. Using a larger rubber strip will provide more thrust but use up the rubber turns faster especially with a smaller propeller.  Getting the optimum combination of rubber width and propeller size is part of the challenge in this type of model aviation.

Stop Watch Resting on Simple Rubber Powered Plane Which Flew 59 Seconds 

From a chart, the maximum turns in a loop of rubber 3/32” wide is 129 turns per inch while for 1/8” rubber strip it goes down to 97 turns per inch. For a rubber loop of 10” this would be 1290 turns for 3/32” and 970 turns for the 1/8” rubber. If the airplane was light enough to fly on the 3/32” the duration of the rubber motor run would be considerably longer. High duration indoor rubber powered free flight models are so light that a huge propeller can turn very slowly to power the model for very long flights. The longest flight ever was just over one hour.

Delicate F1D Model Flies for 30 Minutes Indoors

Adjusting the Flight Path

For a model airplane that is flying without control – free flight, the airplane must have some stability built in and be adjusted to gain altitude and then come down slowly as possible for maximum duration. If the flying is indoors the climb to the maximum height available (the ceiling of the building) should be rather slow but if outdoors reaching maximum altitude possible, quickly is normally the goal. Not only is greater height desired outdoors because it takes longer to come down to the ground but the higher altitude improves the chances of riding thermal air currents.

Powered outdoor free flight airplanes normally are adjusted to circle to the opposite direction of the torque which causes the airplane to circle to the left so the airplane is adjusted to the right. Indoor planes normally are adjusted to circle with the torque to the left.

Airplane in Stall Condition

Important for efficient flight in free flight airplanes is to keep the airplane from stalling in flight which is a loss of lift when the angle of attack is too great, usually after a stall the airplane dives and recovers and the cycle starts over again with a big negative affect on efficiency of the flight.  If the airplane is adjusted without enough climb and flies too fast that is generally not efficient for duration. Adjusting for the optimum flight path throughout a flight is a big part of the fun and challenge to free flight model airplanes.


No doubt I have oversimplified aspects of my explanation, I do hope people check out some of my resources and build some model airplanes.

Bill Kuhl
http://www.ideas-inspire.com

Important Concepts to the Efficiency of Flight for Free Flight Model Airplane

*  The airplane should fly through the air with just enough lift with a minimum amount of drag, many factors relate to this but important ones relate to size and shape of the wing.

*  Powering the airplane with elastic rubber strip it is important to match the parameters of the rubber motor and the propeller to power the airplane in an efficient flight path.

*  Adjustments to get the proper flight path and avoid stalls or dives are critical for maximum flight times.


Additional Resources

http://ideas-inspire.com/simple-glider-curriculum/  - Gary Hinze Tutorial

 http://ideas-inspire.com/foam-plate-and-plastic-straw-gliders/

http://ideas-inspire.com/rubber-powered-foam-model-airplanes/

http://ideas-inspire.com/basic-aerodynamics-with-lesson/


Additional Video That Might be Used in FloatFloat Documentary Trailer an Upcoming Movie About F1D Indoor Model Airplanes
  

Cats, Computers, and Crazy Connections

You might think I am just mentioning cats to create an article with greater appeal and that could be partially true, but there is a tiny common thread.  For my work in technology I just moved a computer printer from one location to another, but much like my experience in moving two cats to another location the transition did not goes as well as I had expected. The cats went into hiding, the printer attached to the different computer did not want to install properly. Eventually over time the cats have become more sociable adapting to their new surroundings, I doubt the printer would have started working on its’ own no matter how long it was connected to the new computer.

Experience tends to teach one that things are way more complicated than it may appear on the surface and what should work easily sometimes doesn’t. The beginning of next week will be 20 years of computer work at my present job and I had several years of experience before that at a different employer. Much you can learn by reading but some expertise is acquired by trial and failure. Just because something absolutely should work doing it one way but does not, trying slight changes might lead to success.

Computer Became Bored With Install and Failed

Back to installing the printer driver for the printer at the new location; I had the CD in the computer and left the USB cable unplugged until prompted to plug it in, and watched the messages go across the screen. After clicking on a couple of prompts the whole process should have been automatic and complete in a couple of minutes. A message on the screen warned this could take several minutes and considering this wasn’t the newest computer I didn’t get too excited about the slow progress. Finally as the bar completed its’ slow progress across the screen an error screen quickly popped up telling me that the install had failed because the process took too long. Now how could that be?  What else did the computer have to do that it would get bored with the tedious process of installing a printer driver.

As the rest of the message suggested I tried the whole process again, and again received the same error. By now what should have taken a couple of minutes had wasted close to an hour. I took a new approach and downloaded the printer driver from the Internet with the installer and one without. Using the installer appeared to start the same install program as before. I stopped this which started an uninstall process which took more time.

Trying the Add Printer Option for Install

After another reboot I installed the driver without the install using the Add Printer option from the Control Panel. This went quick but there was no option for the USB connection. Not sure if getting the driver to at least appear as installed helped, but I started the driver with the install that had been downloaded and the process went pretty fast and was successful.

This Time I Made Sure ALL Drive Components Installed

At this point I feel like I should have a moral to the story but I really don’t.  Other than my somewhat pessimistic view of expect the unexpected. Before moving the two cats my mother had I moved the older cat and she accepted the move fine until she had to be put to sleep. Most of the time installing a printer is a really quick task that anyone can do.

Bill Kuhl

http://www.ideas-inspire.com

Science Olympiad Wheeled Vehicle Advice

In that I have some experience with mousetrap powered cars, a student has asked me for some advice on a similar event in the Science Olympiad competition known as “Wheeled Vehicle”. The model car can be built like a mousetrap powered car but must be powered by a “non-metallic, elastic material (rubber bands, fishing poles bungee cords). I consulted with Al Balmer aka Doc Fizzix and he gave me some advice and sent a rubber band powered car kit that his company sells. Competition requires that a kit cannot be used but as with the mousetrap cars, I learned so much from first building a kit. The kit car also has the adjustable braking that is needed for the competition. 

Long Run of the Day 

Before actually building the kit I was giving the student some advice based on what I knew from trying to get maximum distance from a mousetrap powered car. The challenge for Wheeled Vehicle appears to be more to get the car to move as quickly as possible through a certain distance and then stop accurately on a spot. The car must move very accurately in a straight line also.

Stretching to First Hook Gave Short Runs

With the Doc Fizzix kit car I spent some time running it across the smooth floor in a local mall yesterday and measuring the distance. I had brought some Tan Super Sport rubber strip 3/16” width to try as a replacement for the #64 rubber band included. For rubber model airplane use the Tan Super Sport would be superior but in my trials it didn’t seem to work as well. That could have been because the actual loop of rubber and the length of string were not correct.

Trying Different Loops Sizes with Tan Supper Sport Rubber

For the first runs I only stretched the rubber band to the first hook position, the runs were less than 20 feet. When I stretched the rubber band to the second hook then the distance really increased. On the last run the car went 61 feet which is over 18 meters. For the competition the course is never longer than 12 meters so distance shouldn’t be a problem, more emphasis will have to be placed on speed and accuracy.

Really Stretching Out the Rubber Band

For the competition some type of lever release is needed so that the eraser end of a pencil can start the car and a pole in the front of the car is needed for the laser siting that is used in competition. Some type of adjustable steering might be nice although my kit car appeared to travel very straight without adjustment.

61 Feet Longest Run

1/21/2015 Update

Adjustable Steering Mod

2-18-2015 Update

Lever in Locked Position

Lever in Locked Position

Added a lever device that locks into a wheel on the axle that has a notch in it. The white plastic rigid tubing twists in the holes in the balsa supports, the lever was glued on top of the plastic.



Additional Resources

http://www.docfizzix.com
http://soinc.org/wheeled_vehicle_b


Video of Long Mall Run

Connecting in 2015

As the New Year starts I have given much thought to how I can expand on some of my real passions in life, mainly my model aviation hobby and my science related projects for students.  I have been building a more advanced free flight model airplane for an electric competition class known as “E-36”.  The airplane kit is a Super Pearl E-202 that I had obtained plans and partial kit from PearlFreeFlight.com. In this partial kit the smaller parts that would require more cutting are supplied laser-cut and the longer strips of balsa I obtained at a hobby shop or had in my personal stash. Additional parts that will be needed are the electric motor, timer, ESC, battery, carbon boom, covering and some small miscellaneous parts. Much of the electronics are coming from Texas Timers.  To me it is often a more educational experience if you are forced to research and obtain parts from various sources.

E36 Under Construction

On my website Ideas-Inspire there has been a good amount of activity lately and even a few questions on building the projects. Mousetrap powered cars are again most popular but interest in the syringe hydraulic arm is still high and model aviation related articles. I have been experimenting with a rubber powered car from Doc Fizzix but need to find somewhere indoors to run it.  There is a Science Olympiad event related to this and I would like to be of more help on this.

Dox Fizzix Kit Rubber Powered Car

Recently I connected on Linkedin with many people working in STEM-related careers, a few have contacted me and seem interested in what I have done. One person in particular is Milton Bertrand that has a social media website related to STEM known as Geazle. There is a huge amount of capability with the Geazle system and I am urging everyone interested in STEM to join. I plan to write in more detail about Geazle in the future.

Before the current blast of artic air I had a chance to do some model airplane flying outdoors. Someone sent me some simple rubber powered free flight kits. One I built in a day and had it flying outdoors on Christmas day, another one of the planes is under construction.  Last Saturday was relatively warm also and I flew some other simple rubber powered model airplanes. There was another person flying a RC seaplane from the snow and I talked to him. Turns out we had met before flying indoors and he had a unique model plane created from two RC Champs connected together.

Double Champ

RC Seaplane Landing on Snow

Bill Kuhl
http://www.ideas-inspire.com

Related Links

http://www.geazle.com/
http://www.pearlfreeflight.com/Buy.html
http://www.texastimers.com/
http://www.docfizzix.com

http://scienceguyorg.blogspot.com/2014/12/blue-ridge-dart-rubber-model.html