In Grade 9 Science & Engineering’s Engineering Project, we were tasked with designing and creating a device that involves energy transfer. This is the process I went through to create my Grade 9 Engineering Project’s final product, the Rubber-band Powered Paper Airplane Launcher.

 

 

Day 1: (2023/2/17)

I spent this day mostly planning since I was somewhat behind with my plans. I created a paper airplane and caulculated the dimensions of a perfectly-made paper airplane, so that I can create a product which is suited to launching paper airplanes.

Day 2: (2023/2/21)

On Day 2, I started creating my product. I cut cardboard and created the portion of my product which will hold and launch the paper airplane (what I call the “Launch Capsule”). I used brass fasteners to hold 3 layers of cardboard together. It fit my paper airplane rather well.

Day 3: (2023/2/23)

On Day 3, using Affinity Designer, I created designs for the rest of the components, and used that file to lasercut wood that is 1.5mm thick. This would have gotten me the remaining components I need for my project, but there was an error in the lasercutting instructions and some parts were cut incorrectly.

I also found the axle I will use to secure the trigger mechanism.

Day 4: (2023/2/27)

I noticed that the trigger mechanism does not fit a hand well and is rather awkward to use. Because of this, on Day 4, I redesigned my parts using Affinity Designer, making the handle further from the trigger and also making it longer. Here is a comparison of the starting and updated designs:

Updated handle design:

After that, I noticed that the trigger handle was too far away and that users would have to stretch their hands in an uncomfortable manner, so I moved the handle closer to the trigger, like this:

Day 5: (2023/3/1)

On Day 5, I focused on putting the components together using hot glue. One issue I noticed was that the launch capsule would not fit in the trigger mechanism, but I resolved that by lasercutting more trigger mechanisms and gluing them to the side to make more space.

However, this was not enough. I needed more room for the launch capsule, as the rubber bands on the sides caused extra friction which prevented the launch capsule from launching. This made the product completely unusable. There wasn’t enough time to disassemble and reassemble with more components, however, so my final product did not work as well as I intended for it to.