PHYSICS SOARS:
A paper airplane contest is being added to the physics curriculum. Students will design, build, and fly their planes down the PAC lobby on December 18.
According to physics teachers, the contest is part of the physics class curriculum, so it is a requirement for all physics students to compete. The students will form pairs and face off against each other to build the best paper airplane. They will have to build two paper airplanes: one for getting the longest flight time and one for getting the longest distance.
“I am excited to see what the other peoples’ planes will be like,” Rebecca Johlie, senior, said. “We had won the past art class competition, so I think we are going to win this competition.”
Johlie says that this competition will be fun and will also help the class to learn the aspects of acceleration.
“The project will help the students learn perseverance, engineering, and flight/dynamics,” Peter Kupfer, physics teacher, said.
According to Kupfer, the students will gain the skills of engineering an airplane using their hands, perseverance from trial and error, and flight and dynamics from researching what makes certain planes good or bad.
“These [quarterly projects are] usually the highlight of the kids’ year,” said Kupfer, who thinks that the kids will enjoy this class project.
Kupfer’s class is not the only class that will be doing this project. Anna Wesolik, physics teacher, and her students will also be creating airplanes. Wesolik said that she “wants the students to walk away with the understanding of how an airplane works.”
“Students will learn about flight and how air travels around a plane’s wing,” Wesolik said. “Students are really excited and enthusiastic [to start building their paper airplanes].”
According to Wesolik, the project was chosen because every quarter the physics classes do a project, so this was the project for this quarter since they are learning about acceleration. In all, both physics teachers want their students to walk away with the knowledge of how planes work.
…AND CAD CARVES
The Computer Aided Design (CAD) lab got a new laser this year, and students have been busy designing puzzles.
“We use the laser for projects in all levels of our drafting classes and we also use it for projects, fundraisers, gifts, and merchandise for various school organizations, clubs, and athletics,” Eric Prostka, applied technology teacher, said.
In the CAD lab, students in Intro to Drafting and Drafting Tech are using a design software called AutoCad to make puzzles to be cut out with a laser. The program received the laser and training in September, and the puzzles are the first project students have completed with the laser.
“While the puzzle project had students work with wood, future projects will incorporate various materials including acrylic plexiglass for holiday ornaments, and anodized aluminum when we etch custom water bottles after winter break,” Prostka said.
The laser works by sending a small beam of light into “the tube,” a tube with two mirrors, one fixed and the other moveable. Focusing fluid fills the tube to focus the beam as it bounces from one end to the other. Then the mirror is moved, allowing “the laser beam [to then] come from the back and reflect off a set of mirrors and down onto the piece,” Prostka said.
In addition to the potential of expanding the curriculum, Prostka also sees positive feedback from students.
“It is always great to see the students enter class on a daily basis eager to work on a project that is unique to each of their interests and styles,” Prostka said. “I would say that the most observed dislikes from my students were that they couldn’t make more than one puzzle and that they could not make really large puzzles.”
Although many of the puzzles were taken home by students, some were enlarged and mounted as decorations in a hallway nearby.
Kyle Chamberlain contributed to this story.