Session 10 Time For Flight

Session 10 Time for Flight

This session concluded our after school aviation program. The end of goal of this session was to have each student get their plane into the air. That is what happened. We had cheers, high fives, and shouts of elation from students and parents. What an epic finale to this great program.



 

We had great turnout by parents and family members. Every one of our students flew their plane. Some of the more impressive flights were the one that crashed into the school building, the one that landed about 90 yards down the soccer field. The greatest flight went at least 100 feet up and about 120 yards in length. It flew past the end of the soccer field and ended up landing in a tree. Working as a team the students successfully recovered the plane. Sadly the on plane cameras we used did not record anything other than lots of blue sky, so we left those videos off. Below you will see videos of some of the great and not so great flights.

 



 

 

As you can see the excitement level was high with all of the students. They were not only excited about their own flights but also by the flights of their fellow classmates.



 

 

 

Below is the amazing Piedmont IB vs. Airplane exchange. The airplane lost.



 

 

Even with all of the new pilots the planes held up surprisingly well. The durability and repairability of these planes is amazing. The photo below shows some of the students with their planes after the flights.

 



 

 

 

Though this looks a lot like play it certainly is much deeper. These students took ownership of the creation of their planes. They became so excited the moment their planes went into the air. They used tools they had not seen before. They constructed a structure with system components that was capable of mating up with control and power hardware. They utilized geometry and math. They learned how to draw in 3D and how to convert that "CAD" type file into a "CAM" file of machine code for 3D printing. They explored the details of setting up a 3D print, which is much more like machine tool work than printing. They got their start with some basics of flight and over ten weeks made wings that literally soured.

 

Here are some parting thoughts about the program from the students themselves.

 



 

 

 

Thank you to all of the students and parents that took part in this program. I know it was a sacrifice of time and energy for many of you. As I have said before the students were fantastic. The devotion they had to the program showed through. That is why of the airplanes made it into the air and some even took long journeys.