Kai Geng and I, we first were leaning towards the idea of energy transformation including potential energy to kinetic energy, we first grappled with the idea of a rubber band car, then we played around with the idea of a hopper popper, but the material need to make the hopper popper was unavailable. We then came across a video called “How to Make a Rubber Band Plane Out of Paper – Very EASY” uploaded by JoshBuilds on youtube. We were fascinated by that idea and we decided to take Josh’s single-propeller design and make our own, double-propeller rubber band plane. We looked at materials that are recyclable, and accessible, and we made sure the design was easy to build. unfortunately, I got sick during the final stages of construction. We ended up not being able to finish the prototype. After receiving peer feedback, some strengths we came up with our design were that it was very easy to make, the materials were recyclable and accessible and our design aligned with the needs of our targetted audience, which is children. These children can gather these materials themselves, they can construct their own plane, and get educated on energy transformation. lastly, our design is very safe to use. Some weaknesses of our design were that it was fragile, the quality of the materials wasn’t very good, and we didn’t get to finish it.
Our design fits into the design specifications because it acts as a toy that aligns with our targetted audience which is children, second, it is environmentally friendly, and all the materials that are needed to construct this plane are recyclable. Our design arguably doesn’t possess the best durability, but considering that the materials can be bought so cheaply and so easily, to some extent it cancels out the durability issues we have with our plane. It is for sure very safe to use our plane, its materials are harmless and construction doesn’t require any dangerous jobs like carpentry, laser cutting and such. Our design is original because we admit we took heavy inspiration from JoshBuilds’ video, but instead of completely copying his design. We innovated his design by adding one more propeller and we modified the rubberband twisting mechanism.
I am most proud of the cooperation Kai Geng and I had. We both inputted an equal amount of work, and no one was slacking off. We helped each other out when one is struggling. We were patient with each other. Most importantly, we built on top of each other’s ideas very well. The most challenging thing during this unit was probably when I get sick, and Kai had to work on the project alone, it was very challenging for the group, thank you Kai very much for putting in extra effort.