Roto Copter or PAPER HELICOPTERS

	print-out of the Roto-Copter pattern which you can click-on in Step 1 pencil scissors paper clips crayons or markers newspaper cereal bowl

Print out the Roto-Copter pattern. Click here to go to pattern page or print out in bottom. Cut along the solid lines only. Fold on the dotted lines.     Fold A toward you. Fold B away from you.

Fold C and D over each other so they overlap.

Fold the bottom up and put a paper clip on it.

Hold the Roto-Copter by the paper clip. Throw it like a baseball, as high and far as you can. It will spin to the floor. You can also stand on a chair or on the stairs and drop it. Ask a grown-up if you can drop it out the window.

If you want, you can use crayons or markers to color your Roto-Copter before you fold it. The colors will blur together when it spins.

Make three Roto-Copters for each person. Use a marker to draw a 1-foot circle on a piece of newspaper. Put a cereal bowl in the middle of the circle. The circle is the target area and the bowl is the bull's-eye. Take turns standing on a chair at the edge of the newspaper and dropping your Roto-Copters. At the Exploratorium, we get 3 points for a bull's-eye, 2 points for a copter inside the circle, and one point for just hitting the newspaper-but you can make up any rules you want.
--------------------------------- Igor Sikorsky designed the first successful helicopter in the late 1930s. His inspiration came from drawings of an aircraft with a spinning wing, drawn by Leonardo da Vinci nearly five hundred years before.

Does a big Roto-Copter spin differently than a little one? Here are two sizes for you to try. Print this page out and then return to the Roto-Copter activity.

PAPER HELICOPTERS

To give us a little understanding of how a helicopter’s rotor blades work, we made paper helicopters using this simple template.

                       

You fold on the dotted lines. A & B are the rotor blades and one is folded towards you and the other away from you. C overlaps D and is secured with a paper clip.

We worked in pairs, one throwing their helicopter, the other timing the flight. We were allowed to make one adjustment for subsequent flights, things like:

* using a different sized template
* adding more paperclips to the load
* folding the blades differently
* having more than two rotating blades

YOU CAN WATCH THIS VIDEO....

We observed each flight carefully and found out whether our blades turned in a clockwise or anti-clockwise direction, how fast or slow the blades spun and whether the size influenced the flight. The air was pushing on both blades but because they were folded in different directions, it caused the copter to spin.

                              
          

          
          
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RYAH’S FIRST FLIGHT

What I did first was give it a little push and then the blades started to spin.

My partner Oliver timed my helicopter and the time was 1.75 secs.

It was awesome. My teacher is the best about Science.

CALEB’S FIRST FLIGHT

My helicopter was spinning with the wind and went very, very far to the left

and it was spinning anti-clockwise. It looked like the blades were slicing through

the air. (3.56secs)

EMILY’S SECOND FLIGHT

The thing I changed was the fold. I changed by folding the blades the other

way. I think this flight was better. My blades spun anti-clockwise. (3.64secs)

SETH’S SECOND FLIGHT

I changed it by putting another paperclip on and it went quicker because

of the weight. But to me it looked slower, even though it went well. (2.31secs)

CHARLI’S THIRD FLIGHT

My change was, I tried my little helicopter without the paperclips.

It was a really good flight but it landed in water. (4.00secs)

KIRSTY’S THIRD FLIGHT

My helicopter was the little one and it was the winner because it stayed

in the air for longer, which is just like a real helicopter. Its blades went faster

because the littler, the faster and it went sideways too. (3.09secs)