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Paper Airplane Designs (2013)
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Re: Paper Airplane Designs (2013)
#72My favorite paper plane is the one that is explained starting at 03:00 here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3BNg4fDJC8A Out of all paper planes I tried, it has the best flying capabilities by far. Form and function really come together in this one. It looks beautifully simple and elegant. And that's also how it flies. When you throw it from a rooftop, you are in for quite a show. It often flies loooong smooth circle…
Wow, after the first two folds, this plane really folds itself. The first fold is at 22.5 degrees, which makes all further folds have alignment with the base of the plane. My entire life i was folding a plane that starts with two classic 45 degrees, then a 90 degree fold of the top 2/5th of the paper, again 45 degrees tip, hook in the little triangle. Fold over symmetry line and add wings however you want them. It's…
Yes, it's cool how logical all the creases are. The first two align with the border of the paper. All other creases align with previous creases.
Re: Paper Airplane Designs (2013)
#73In 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…
I was at a math camp where one of the activities was that each team had to design a paper plane and get it to a castle on top of a hill by throwing it the fewest times possible (like in golf). Several teams converged on a design of a crumbled ball of paper as that was what offered the best combination of accuracy and distance. Since there was no rule against it, we've allowed it. Some of the teams who played with con…
I'm aware of an even more efficient "hack" of the rules as different versions of this type of story are a mainstay of certain types of business courses where they want to try and teach a lesson of working together, delegation, cooperation, task specialization, etc.
The most efficient way to move a stack of paper to a goal isn't to take each piece and do something to it (crumple/fold) but to just leave it together and heave the entire ream of paper.
Note: this also frustrates the folks putting on the activity.
Re: Paper Airplane Designs (2013)
#74In 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…
Reading that story, I feel bad for Derek. They thought outside the box, and came up with an objectively superior solution -- only to have it rejected for no reason other than the fact that they thought outside the box.
On the surface, this sounds like a fabulous exercise: it requires some creative engineering thinking. But apparently, the way they addressed the winners left both of the top two teams feeling unsatisfied. Great exercise; poor execution.
Re: Paper Airplane Designs (2013)
#75Earlier quoted context omitted.
Are BSG or Saboteur cult brainwashing tactics? - https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/37111/battlestar-galacti... - https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/9220/saboteur There are also some D&D campaigns that work in the same way (and unlike in the board games the heroes don't know that there might be traitors among them).
There’s a major difference between expected betrayal being part of the rules of a game, and gaslighting groups of children into competing under false pretenses. Does playing by the rules of BSG or Saboteur guarantee a loss for the team that by the rules should be winning? The analogy would be appropriate if BSG was a competitive space fleet management game and some players decide in advance to make it a meta-game to…
These are camps for adults and the activity was not scored. Playing by the rules didn't guarantee a loss — there were no winners or loosers among the non-traitors.
I think the major issue that sets the game apart from the mentioned board games is that players don't know there might be traitors. OTOH it's impossible to have the board game that way, since it would only work the first time it is played. However, the D&D campaigns are the same as our game in this regard.
Anyway, the game wasn't all bad, some teams told us that they had a great time and found it an interesting and uncommon experience. But since too many people struggled with it we've decided to not run it again.
Re: Paper Airplane Designs (2013)
#76Has anyone done any research on which type of paper travels best? How does weight distribution play a factor? Does the type of paper impact the design of the plane you build?
Re: Paper Airplane Designs (2013)
#77Is there a good biodegradable paper for making planes? There are lots of great buildings/bridges/mountains/cliffs that would be really fun to launch them off of.
Re: Paper Airplane Designs (2013)
#78As a kid I had a great book with lots of science experiments in it called "Science Is" (Author: Susan V. Bosak) It had an entire section on airplanes but there was one that absolutely destroyed my intuition about flight and to this day confuses adults whenever I get the chance to make it (something like a team building event where we need to make paper airplanes). It's literally two hoops of paper and a stick. Here's…
The French C.450 Coleoptere had a cylinder wing which provided plenty of lift:
Re: Paper Airplane Designs (2013)
#79In 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…
Reading that story, I feel bad for Derek. They thought outside the box, and came up with an objectively superior solution -- only to have it rejected for no reason other than the fact that they thought outside the box. On the surface, this sounds like a fabulous exercise: it requires some creative engineering thinking. But apparently, the way they addressed the winners left both of the top two teams feeling unsatisfi…
#justiceforderek
Re: Paper Airplane Designs (2013)
#80It might be fun to implement these in something like this origami simulator: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31281700 https://origamisimulator.org ; that seems to have a bit of trouble with order-of-operation steps, but I think would still be interesting.