Cardboard Glider Airplane Competition

We propose to run a Cardboard Glider Airplane Competition as one of the activities for the secondary school students. The competition will consist of 3 stages:

1. The 1st stage will be the Design and Build Stage where the students will have to design a glider that can fly properly before they come to the competition day at USM. They may have to build more than one glider to improve their design and construction of the gliders. The students supply their own materials to build the gliders, which can be made from cheap and recycled materials. Schools that want to participate in this competition must email us at aero@eng.usm.my at least 3 days before the competition day. They can also send pictures of their gliders.
2. The 2nd stage will be the Flying Competition at USM where the students will fly their best gliders and compete with other groups. In this 1st round of the actual competition, student groups will compete their gliders to go to the 2nd round. The gliders can only be flown by hand-throwing them. Winners will be chosen based on the distance covered from the launching pad. As a guide, try to build gliders that can fly straight for at least 10 meters. 4 best groups will be selected to enter the 2nd, or final, round.
3. In the 3rd stage, which is also the 2nd round of competition, the 4 student groups must give presentations about their glider projects. In these presentations, which will be set in an informal setting, each group can tell the audience how they started their project, how they managed their group work, what problems they faced in the project, what they did to improve their gliders’ performance, and most importantly, what they learned in the process. They can also explain about the science of aerodynamics about the glider.

Judging Criteria of the Final Round:

10 judges of the presentation will be selected randomly from the audience to judge the presentation quality in the final round. They will be ask to rate the student presentation and their gliders from 1 to 10 (10 being the best marks). The student group with the highest marks will be chosen as the winner. To help improve their presentations, student groups are encouraged to make some extra presentation materials, such as cardboard drawings, gliders from their earlier designs, and other things.

Details of Glider Competition:

In this competition, each student group will design and build a glider using mainly cardboards, hard papers, styrofoams, etc. Recycled materials can be used. A glider is an aircraft with a wing but without any propellers. They can use other types of materials to help them in building the gliders: for example, glue, adhesive tapes, clay (to put extra weight on the plane), light wood (to make the aircraft body, which is called a fuselage), normal papers, etc.

There are not many rules in this glider competition. You can design the airplane however you want. As a guide, a glider typically consists of a fuselage, a wing, a vertical stabilizer, and a horizontal stabilizer. Sometimes, clay is placed at the glider nose to balance the glider when flying. Students are encourage to explore on their own the principles and construction of cardboard or paper gliders from the internet. These are some websites that might offer suggestions on how to build a cardboard glider:

1. http://www.sciencelearn.org.nz/Contexts/Flight/Teaching-and-Learning-Approaches/Making-a-glider
2. http://wright.nasa.gov/ROGER/1902model.htm
3. http://www.ehow.com/how_12076548_make-glider-cardboard-tube.html
4. http://www.wikihow.com/Make-a-Flying-Model-Plane-from-Scratch
5. http://www.sciencelearn.org.nz/Contexts/Flight/Looking-Closer/Gliders-and-kites
6. http://www.grc.nasa.gov/WWW/K-12/airplane/bga.html (explains some basics on the science of aerodynamics).