Flights of fancy

West Derby School, Liverpool held a STEM Day which was based around the idea of the boys designing and building a “propelled glider” style aeroplane. There were four main elements to the project which included: constructions of the fuselage, calculations of wind loading, constructing the propeller and exploring aspects of thrust, drag, lift and weight. They had access to a number of materials and had the opportunity to ‘buy’ some extra materials out of a budget they were given and managed throughout the day. At the end of the day the aeroplanes were tested; the aim to see which aeroplane could travel furthest in the air.