Gyroscopic Soda Bottle Glider Toy

This is a pretty easy and surprisingly fun toy that you can make out of recycled materials. I designed it based on the commercially available 'X-zylo' toy. It takes a little bit of skill to throw it right, but once you do it can appear to defy gravity across large distances. There's a video on youtube of one being thrown further than a football field! Of course my design isn't as lightweight, but it still performs quite well and best of all you can make it yourself!

Materials:

• 2-liter plastic bottle with straight sides
• Scissors
• Paper
• Tape
• Marker/pen capable of marking up bottle
• Post-it notes (optional)

If you make one, share a video of your distance record!

Comments

[wang1]

Any PDF for this? I really want to make one of this

[parisusa]

The 2nd photo (or video ?) is blank. :(

[SuperTech-IT]

I used to make almost the exact same thing out of paper about 30 years ago. It amazed people back then too that a tube could fly.

[jujubee31]

Coolio

[snoopindaweb]

Whaat happened.?

[stubbsonic]

Cool toy. Could it work to cut some narrow channels before folding end over? Or alternatively, using a couple layers of duct tape around the rim instead of making the fold? Less elegant, but might function similarly to add mass for the rotational inertia.

[thegnome54]

Cutting the channels first could work, though I would be a bit worried about them tearing further as you made the fold. To avoid this you could use something like a hole punch first, then cut down to those circles so that the end of the channel resists tearing. If the cuts are too wide though, it might also lose the pressure that holds the folded part in.

Duct tape might work! I'm not sure how much weight is actually needed. Another approach that could possibly work would be to make the rest of the body lighter instead - attach a sort of paper skirt to a ring of plastic. If it held its shape, it might perform even better!

[jujubee31]

This is so amazing and entertaining my dad is gonna help me make it

[thegnome54]

Awesome! Let me know how far it goes =D