GliderBret, Scott, Oliver, Zach

DefineWe were tasked to doing a final “capstone” project. We had free range on what we wanted to do, and our group decided to investigate more in-depth into the concept of flight. We were really intrigued by the paper airplane project from earlier in the year, and wanted to do something similar!

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Understand and ExploreWe wanted to build a glider for our final

Capstone project. So, we searched on

google for different glider designs and

found that most gliders have a large

wing to body ratio. This allows the glider to glide longer and better because

the large wings.

IdeateAfter searching, we found this design:

We liked how it looked and felt like the big wings would allow for easy gliding.

We also like the support of the wings from the belly of the plane.

MaterialsWe were able to find some cardboard type material to build the glider out of. We wanted the glider to have a sturdy body and wings, so this cardboard would come in handy. Our only concern was that it may be too heavy, but it was the best material we had available and we wanted to make it work.

PrototypeThis was our first prototype, called “Rooster”.

We used some thin, condensed cardboard type material to build the prototype and based it off of the design we found

Prototype After testing the prototype, we realized that we would need to do a few things for our full scale project. First, we will need to have bigger wings and have it be more stable. We were able to see in the video that the glider prototype was too flimsy and the wing/body ratio was off so it was unable to fly properly.

RedesignIn our redesign for the final glider, we opted for a larger wing-to-body ratio to increase lift and larger supports to increase wing stability and reduce bend. Once we tested the body of the glider (without the supports and perpendicular spine), we found the wings were slightly too large, and there was too much lift. To counteract this, we we redesigned our perpendicular spine to be front loaded, which pushed down the nose of the glider in flight.

Final SolutionThis is our final glider. It flew pretty well the first few flights, but quickly the back of the glider became bent and twisted. This allowed for a good start to the flight, but then it fell quickly.

Images

VideosTest Flight

Slo-mo

Future ImprovementsSince we were limited on time, and the cardboard was very time consuming to cut, we were not able to do another glider like we had hoped. If we would have been able to redesign, we would have had bigger tail wings to increase the balance of the plane, and made the wing supports more sturdy. Overall, we were happy with what we build and what we learned along the way.