Paper Airplane Designs (2013) • Hacker News Board

Re: Paper Airplane Designs (2013)

#11

Post by kqr » Mon, Jul 18, 2022, 5:43 AM UTC

My interest in science started when a friend and I folded a few paper planes, tested them over a small downhill section outside my house, made notes about what worked, tweaked and experimented with new designs, and so on. It blew my little mind that with structured experimentation you could design things that actually got better with each generation. Where would the improvements stop?

With hindsight, I realise that most of the improvements we measured were really just statistical noise. We never had a control plane, so if one by accident flew better one test, then we would tweak something and then we would naturally see regression to the mean, but we would record that as a tweak that made things worse.

To little me it was a lesson in deliberate design. To grown-up me I guess it's a lesson in how easy it is to delude yourself without proper experiment design and statistics.

Anyway, then after seeing my interest my father brought me an early Windows program that contained animated instructions on some paper plane designs. One of them was vastly superior to anything I had ever seen. But with the years, I forgot how to fold it. I had been looking for it for over 20 years when a few months ago, I wanted to show my son (of two years) a good paper plane and guess what? I think I've found the design! But it took a blurry YouTube video and some trial and error. I ought to write it down some day.

Re: Paper Airplane Designs (2013)

#12

Post by carapace » Mon, Jul 18, 2022, 5:47 AM UTC

One of the finest paper airplanes is the origami design of Prof. James M. Sakoda of Brown University "winner of the origami award in the First Inernational Paper Airplane Contest" in 1967 and published in "The Great International Paper Airplane Book" (Jerry Mander, George Dippel, Howard Gossage)

https://i.imgur.com/Kv94Glf.png

Re: Paper Airplane Designs (2013)

#13

Post by dang » Mon, Jul 18, 2022, 6:13 AM UTC

Paper Airplane Designs - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23545860 - June 2020 (8 comments)

Paper Airplane Designs - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18249755 - Oct 2018 (206 comments)

Real Paper Airplane Designs - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12632253 - Oct 2016 (1 comment)

Re: Paper Airplane Designs (2013)

#14

Post by isaacn » Mon, Jul 18, 2022, 6:18 AM UTC

kqr wrote: post #11

My interest in science started when a friend and I folded a few paper planes, tested them over a small downhill section outside my house, made notes about what worked, tweaked and experimented with new designs, and so on. It blew my little mind that with structured experimentation you could design things that actually got better with each generation. Where would the improvements stop? With hindsight, I realise that m…

Link?

Re: Paper Airplane Designs (2013)

#15

Post by achow » Mon, Jul 18, 2022, 6:20 AM UTC

dang wrote: post #13

Related: Paper Airplane Designs - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29466325 - Dec 2021 (8 comments) Paper Airplane Designs - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23545860 - June 2020 (8 comments) Paper Airplane Designs - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18249755 - Oct 2018 (206 comments) Real Paper Airplane Designs - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12632253 - Oct 2016 (1 comment)

Yes this website keeps popping up in HN.

Which makes me to wonder what is the logic for checking a duplicate? I know that dups are checked while submitting a link, but how far in time does it go?

If the check is time bound is it due to performance or is it due to belief that after sufficient time gap content inside an identical link could be different?

Re: Paper Airplane Designs (2013)

#16

Post by mod » Mon, Jul 18, 2022, 6:29 AM UTC

In fourth grade we had a paper airplane contest, but they had a restriction on the design: a circle about the size of a quarter was on the page, and no fold or crease could go through the circle.

The circle was located a few inches above the exact center of the paper.

Anyway I made a "dart", and just offset the angle a little to avoid the circle. It was good, and most of the competition was incredibly bad. And a few maybe had a bad launch. One throw only.

One clever design was submitted by a duo composed of my two worst nine year old enemies: Derek and Derek's sidekick. It was basically a UFO (saucer) made by carefully crumpling the edge until it was a nice size to throw. They threw it sidearm with one finger hooked around the rim.

It really sailed, maybe went twice as far as the second best plane: my plane.

But their plane was disqualified on the grounds that it wasn't a plane. So, I was deemed winner.

For the announcements the next morning, my name was announced as the wrong-gendered version (something like Jesse announced as Jessica) and it definitely didn't feel like a win anymore.

I still like paper airplanes, though.

Re: Paper Airplane Designs (2013)

#17

Post by beaker52 » Mon, Jul 18, 2022, 6:30 AM UTC

themodelplumber wrote: post #8

beaker52 wrote: post #4

Given the weather at the moment, I remember, as a kid, being astounded when I threw a paper airplane on a hot summers-day that didn't immediately come back down to earth like normal, but soared and soared and soared for minutes before I lost it. It blew my little kid mind.

What a great feeling that must have been. It's funny, it's kind of similar to walkie talkie transmissions in the summer. They can get tunneled through the troposphere and suddenly you are talking to people you never expected to contact. A couple summers ago I was out in my yard, called out randomly on my little 5W handheld, and the signal went just over 8 miles through flat, forested city neighborhoods into the back…

Amazing. I'm grateful for the way this universe creates magical experiences for us. Sometimes I wonder if it really is just an accident.

Re: Paper Airplane Designs (2013)

#18

Post by mgdlbp » Mon, Jul 18, 2022, 6:31 AM UTC

My friends and I could never get any of the pointy darts to work with a hard throw--they never had the right balance not to loop or nosedive at high speed. What we settled on as the most satisfying to hurl is this design (found online widely under this name; requires letter proportion paper): https://www.instructables.com/The-Hammer-Paper-Airplane/

Carefully made, it flies straight when yeeted without trimming, and the blunt nose handles landings without damage. I surmise that the fold along the entire edge of the wing contributes to high-speed performance by preventing the trailing edge from fluttering. Could this also be why the world record designs tend to have winglets?

A design that's amusing to experiment with is the most minimalistic glider, made with a heavy roll-fold of the leading edge of the paper and three parallel folds forming the wings and fuselage.[1] The parameters being length & number of folds and camber of the wings, it can be tuned to manage a hard throw straight before stalling and leveling out to a long flight in phugoid motion.

Flying rings are interesting, too. The rotationally symmetrical type formed from only a roll fold and tape (purity notwithstanding) are similarly minimalistic

[1] like this without the winglets, thus a case against my theory of wing support: https://www.origamiway.com/plane-spy-plane.shtml

Re: Paper Airplane Designs (2013)

#19

Post by worthless-trash » Mon, Jul 18, 2022, 6:37 AM UTC

mod wrote: post #16

In fourth grade we had a paper airplane contest, but they had a restriction on the design: a circle about the size of a quarter was on the page, and no fold or crease could go through the circle. The circle was located a few inches above the exact center of the paper. Anyway I made a "dart", and just offset the angle a little to avoid the circle. It was good, and most of the competition was incredibly bad. And a few…

Sounds so scooby do, I love it.

Re: Paper Airplane Designs (2013)

#20

Post by kqr » Mon, Jul 18, 2022, 6:39 AM UTC

isaacn wrote: post #14

kqr wrote: post #11

My interest in science started when a friend and I folded a few paper planes, tested them over a small downhill section outside my house, made notes about what worked, tweaked and experimented with new designs, and so on. It blew my little mind that with structured experimentation you could design things that actually got better with each generation. Where would the improvements stop? With hindsight, I realise that m…

Link?

This was the YouTube video where I think the person makes the same design as the one I remember: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=t2sozrof3HY