For Grade 9 Science & Engineering’s Engineering project, we were asked to design a product which demonstrates the transfer of energy. My product is a rubber-band powered paper airplane launcher. Here’s an image of the final product:

The product ended up not functioning correctly as the friction caused by the rubber bands rubbing against the sides stopped the airplane from launching.

Here are some additional questions that I will ask myself to reflect on this project.

 

What transfer of energy is shown in this product?

This product receives the kinetic energy of an arm pulling back the launch capsule, and converts that to elastic potential energy. When a finger pulls the trigger using kinetic energy, the elastic potential energy is converted into kinetic energy and would launch the plane forwards, with a small portion being converted to waste energy types like thermal and sound.

 

What would I do differently if I could do this project again?

If I could do this project again, I would plan in 3 dimensions. This product would have worked if thickness wasn’t a factor, but things like hot glue and the difference in cardboard and wood thicknesses made the product fail. Something else I would do differently is to spend less time on Define & Inquire. I spent more than enough time not doing anything and just thinking about whether my ideas are good enough to move to Develop & Plan, which forced me to later spend my first Create & Improve lesson on planning.

 

What do I think I did well?

I think I did many things well in this project, despite the final product not working. I feel like my plan was a good plan, since it is detailed and includes several features which improved the product, such as the aim assist and the trigger mechanism. I also think that I used Affinity Designer rather well, since I never used Affinity before this project. I got a decent grasp on the application rather quickly.

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.

In Science & Engineering’s G9 Engineering Project, we were tasked with designing and creating a device that involves energy transfer.

Purpose: Demonstrate the transfer of energy, and also entertain.

The G9 Engineering Project specifies that this project is meant to show energy transfer, so that is the main goal of this project. Furthermore, I would like for my device to be entertaining or at least interesting since it would be completely pointless otherwise.

Audience: People who would like to be entertained and / or learn about energy transfer.

Project Constraints:

• A time limit of two weeks for building. This will limit how complex my device can be.
• Limited materials. This will make some ideas impossible, and other ideas not fully implementable.
• My lack of skills. This will affect the quality of my product, and also make some ideas off-limits to me.

 

Here are my 3 initial design ideas:

Idea 1: Wooden Marble Track

Materials:

• Wood, because it is the most accessible material at the ISB Design Center. It is also rather durable.
• 3D printing material if possible, because it would save the time of cutting and help with precision. However, I don’t have much experience with 3D printing.

Pros:

• Is not overly complicated / intricate.
• Is rather interesting.
• Not dangerous at all.

Cons:

• Requires materials to come in blocks instead of planks, which is what the Design Center offers.
• Woodcutting might be time-consuming, and therefore it might not be possible to make a long marble track.

Idea 2: Rube Goldberg Machine

Materials:

• Depends on the machine. Will require lots of different materials though.

Pros:

• Is not too complicated to set up.
• Is interesting.
• The final product is not very dangerous.

Cons:

• Testing will take a lot of time.
• Requires a lot of planning.
• Requires precise measurements.
• Is very fragile: one accidental / failed activation and the entire project will have to be reset.
• Could be difficult to design.

Idea 3: Rubber-band-powered Paper Airplane Launcher

Materials:

• Paper for the paper airplane.
• Rubber band(s).
• Cardboard
• Wood

Pros:

• Fun.
• Not very dangerous.

Cons:

• There aren’t a lot of improvements to be made after the basic product is finished, so if I finish early I will have nothing to do.

 

In the end, I decided to develop the paper airplane launcher. The wooden marble track simply requires too much time, and the Rube Goldberg machine requires too much planning.