A quickie make: a teeny boomerang / Frisbee cross that you can cut out without a template and fly around your room. Make a bunch before you go on holiday, stick them in your wallet, and you can keep the kids happy in the airport.

(This was supposed to be for the Launch It challenge, but I never quite got round to making the video...)

Flickerangs.doc
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Step 1: Cut...

Check the image below.

You need to cut out a shape roughly like that, three to five centimetres (an inch or two) across. That's a hole in the middle.

When I say "roughly", I mean roughly - circular, square or even mutant-potato-from-Venus shaped. It does need the little winglets, though.

If you are right-handed

Hold the Boomeree in the palm of your hand, and look at the winglets. Fold the clockwise sides of the winglets down slightly.

If you are left-handed

Hold the Boomeree in the palm of your hand, and look at the winglets. Fold the anti-clockwise sides of the winglets down slightly.

Step 2: ...and Launch.

Hold the Boomeree flat on the palm of your "wrong" hand, with a single winglet sticking out at the side (i.e. if you are right-handed, put it on your left palm).

Point the Boomeree slightly skywards and give the winglet a hard flick.

With enough spin, and just the right launch, the Boomeree may eventually return to you.

If it doesn't, and your small charges keep losing theirs, just make a load and keep them handy. Alternatively, if they can use scissors they can make their own - there are twenty templates on the Word document below, which should work even if they are cut out with the ragged haste of a child.

A note on security

I strongly recommend, if you are planning to let somebody play with these in an airport (burn off a bit of energy before the boring flight), then either make them before you go, or practice tearing the shape out of paper instead of cutting. We can't have you wielding deadly scissors in an airport, can we?

Step 3: Why "Boomeree"?

I was going to call this thing a flickerang - a boomerang that you flick - but I half remember that you used to be able to buy tiny plastic boomerangs called Flickerangs. I'd have been breaching trademarks or something. That's why the images are called "flickerang".

So, boomeree - half way between a boomerang and a frisbee. Simple, really.

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31 Discussions

Kiteman

11 years ago on Introduction

Testing what? There's a forum topic for testing formatting ideas, or you can use your own orangeboard.

superhornt

11 years ago on Introduction

i just made one-IT DONT WORK! it didn't work 4 me.

Kiteman

11 years ago on Introduction

Try making the wings larger, make sure you have bent the wings the right way, but the main thing is to make sure you get spin - flick the end of a wing as fast as you can.

After that, it's just a matter of practice. Larger ones will fly better than tiny ones, but most will fly if they just spin fast enough.