A few days ago, my whole class made FOSS planes. This picture shows some of the kids in our class testing out our planes.



Me and my partner made our plane by sanding down two craft sticks, and hole-punching two jumbo straws. We put another straw through the holes we punched in the jumbo straw, and then stapling the bottom of the jumbo straws in between the craft sticks. We then added a propeller by inserting a plastic tab that had the propeller on it, so the craft sticks were inside it. The propeller had a small hook on it so a rubber-band could slide into it. On the back of the plane there was one more plastic tab with only a hook on it.



We tested our planes by stringing fishing line through the straw on the top of the plane, and taped each side of the fishing line to a chair, so we had our plane on the string. We then hooked a rubber band on to the hooks. To make the plane go, we wound our rubber-band clockwise, then let it go.

One of the things we experimented with, was how many winds it took to get our plane to the middle of the fishing line, and all the way across. We also did this with more than one rubber-band, and different sizes of rubber bands. It took me and my partner's plane 30 winds to get all the way across, and 20 to get half way.

In this experiment, we learned about tension, and how the rubber-band makes the plane go. We also learned that you shouldn't change more than one variable at a time. The bigger and thicker the rubber band, the plane goes farhter, the smaller and skinnier the rubber band, it doesn't go very far.