Biomimicry glider

Learning hook

Flying or gliding?

Show students the images of animals on slide 2 of the Teacher Resource and ask them what they notice or wonder.

Try to elicit wondering about whether the animals are flying or gliding, and what the difference might be, as well as any patterns in animal body structures that enable flight.

Next, watch this video of BASE-jumper Ellen Brennen in a wingsuit.

As a class, discuss which animal Ellen Brennen most resembles in her wingsuit.

Learning input

Explain to students that the class will focus on gliders. Build student confidence in talking about gliders by defining the component parts:

• wings
• fuselage (body)
• tail
• nose.

Compare a simple paper plane with an animal that glides. As a class, identify the analogous structures.

Explain to students that a glider only has three main forces acting on it: lift, drag and weight. In order for a glider to fly, it must generate lift to oppose its weight. To generate lift, the glider must move through the air. But the motion of the glider through the air generates drag, so the glider slows down until it can no longer generate enough lift to oppose the weight.

To explore these forces in action, have students build a basic glider, take a photo of their glider and label the different parts of the glider. They should also annotate the photo to show the forces acting on the glider during flight.

Students can watch this short video to learn how to build a basic glider. You may want to watch through initially, then start the video again, pausing frequently to enable students to build along with the presenter.

Learning construction

Aerospace engineers often derive inspiration from the natural world. This is called biomimicry. Read more about how biomimicry is inspiring innovation in aeronautics.

Explain to students that they are going to use biomimicry and engage in aerospace engineering themselves. Their challenge is to build a glider inspired by nature.

Part A: Researching animal features

Students work in small groups to research gliding animals. They select an animal and create a poster with a labelled diagram showing all the ways that animal is adapted for gliding. You can start with the list below or encourage students to research their own animals.

• Colugo
• Paradise tree snake
• Kuhl’s parachute gecko
• Flying squirrel
• Flying fish
• Japanese flying squid
• Draco lizard
• Wallace’s flying frog
• Sugar glider

Students then complete a gallery walk to explore all the different animals. As they examine the posters, they construct a list of useful features, for example, light bones, small body-to-wing-span ratio, streamlined body.

Part B: Biomimicry and design

Now that they have some inspiration from nature, students can begin to iterate on the basic glider design using the engineering design process.

Define: Challenge students to design a glider that can carry a ‘passenger’ (such as a 15g chocolate bar) over a distance of at least 4m.

Identify: Be clear about the constraints of the design challenge – for example, the materials available, the time available, the launch location.

Materials provided could include cardboard, recycled foam trays, foil, paperclips, rubber bands, icy pole sticks, balsa wood, masking tape, glue, paper, cardboard tubes, plasticine, bamboo skewers and paper straws.

Brainstorm

Support students to brainstorm their design solutions by thinking about potential analogues for each useful feature. What materials, construction technique or design consideration should we employ?

As a class, go through the features students identified in Part A, note key structural considerations, and come up with analogues using the available materials. Use this table to make a start:

Now, have students sketch ideas for their glider, iterating on the basic glider design they constructed earlier. To help students explore multiple ideas freely, have them use whiteboards or large pieces of scrap paper to sketch multiple ideas.

Select: Students select the most promising of their ideas, and sketch it fully, annotating the sketch to include key considerations for when they prototype.

Prototype: Students build their prototype.

Test: Students test their prototype to see if it will reach the 4m mark. They record the distance the prototype travels over three trials.

Iterate: Students iterate on their design to improve its performance and test again.

Communicate: Students create a poster outlining the key features of their final design and how they used biomimicry to improve the original glider design. They display their final prototype with the poster.