Rubber Band Powered Plane

BACKSTORY:

One day while listening in to conversation of my grade 7 students i realized how times has changed.They were talking about Drones. It was amazing how much kids understand about new tech these days.Then I thought to myself ,"If i can show them something that can fly and they can make easily i could be their 'cool teacher' from now on".

That night I googled , I found nothing absolutely nothing that could make a simple cheap DIY plane feel fancy or dare i say comparable to RC drone because the result I found in DIY section didn't fly like a plane ,it was just gliding.I was ready to give up being a 'cool new teacher' then I found a YouTube video which displayed a plane so good I was drooling , I wanted it soo much that I had forgotten about my young students. This is the YouTube video I found.

[I do not own this video or have anything to do with anyone involved in this video.All rights are owned by creator of this video.]

After being inspired I wanted to make one and looking at the video it looked easy and let me tell you I tried and failed miserably. i couldn't get my hands on all the things needed to make the aircraft so i substituted almost every thing with things we can find around house and long story short it barely glided let alone fly but then i realized i was diving head first into this . i cannot be a pro football player in just one day , people in the video have been doing this for years they are the pros i am not even armature so i took a step down and tried to make a simple rubber band powered plane without all the fancy stuff

soo,

what is rubber powered plane ?

A plane that uses an elastic band for propulsion is a rubber powered plane.

How does a rubber band airplane work?

This is a toy airplane, powered by a rubber band. The propeller is wound up by the user, storing energy in the rubber band as it winds. The user will then throw the airplane just like a paper airplane, except the rotating propeller will provide additional thrust, and the airplane will be able to travel much further.

OK , enough with the google descriptions lets get serious now, i have learned many things during this build and one thing you have to remember is "Everything is respective and nothing is absolute"

Supplies

Requirements

• pliers x 1
• scissors x 1
• box-cutter/paper cutter x 1
• glue stick x 2
• plastic bags x 5
• bamboo skewers x 10
• drinking straws x 4

Step 1: Making Propeller

Material:

To make propeller first thing you need to do is find suitable material and again almost anything will work because we are making a simple plane not a specific low weight over 20 minutes flying beast.we have to keep in mind that the material should not be too heavy not to stiff and not to soft.

I used cap of pringles chips.you can use center part of 2.25L coca:cola bottle to make propeller

Shape:

You can just make a simple shape,I found inspiration from google images for example here is one that will work

Step 2: Making the Engine

So here i took some thread superglue and straw some paper clips and attached them in a way shown in last image

paperclips are modified to be hooks ,where one hook is stationary another hook is connected to propeller and the tension created by rubber band generates potential for rotation of propeller.

Step 3:

Here is how my rubber powered engine works.

Step 4:

For wings what I did was take bamboo skewers and made a rectangular shape of 20 cm X 10 cm and took plastic bag cut it into same dimension

For tail I did same thing but dimensions were 5 cm X 5 cm for vertical and 10 cm X 5 cm for horizontal

the images uploaded are before i trimmed unwanted materials like extra plastic etc so make sure your aircraft doesn't have things string and plastic loose

Step 5: Fly High

i know current design will not get you record breaking flight time or best flight characteristics but this can be your doorway to rubber power because there is entire category to be explored.

this design will fly further when the plane is throne with the wind