A shuttle launch!!!!
12/13/2010
As the fall semester of 2010 comes to a close, the SUNY adolescent education science students meet with local middle school students to accomplish a feat even NASA could not manage this fall. A shuttle launch!!!! Yes indeed, these middle school students built their own shuttles out of cardstock paper, tape and staples proving, once again, that cheaper is sometimes better.
The object of the investigation was to construct a working paper model of the space shuttle and then determine how it could be “launched” to travel from point A to point B, AND land on a specified surface without falling off. Did they manage this? YES! After several tries with various ‘flight’ lines and angled trajectories, every student managed to land on specified targets, proving that even a middle school student can work out complicated flight systems including landing the space shuttle safely on Earth.
I do not think this craft has enough tape on it to keep it together during re-entry into Earth’s atmosphere.
Ready, set, release! Oops. It is not moving. Can you figure out what you need to do to make it work?
I believe you need to rethink the attachment process. How about relocating the paperclips? (So scientifically correct).
You’re kidding, right? It has to land there? Without falling off? Did I tell you that I put double-backed tape under the shuttle (a student really did this)?
Testing the validity of the process, SUNY students prove to the middle schoolers that it really does work. Or not?
Coming in for a landing! The first successful shuttle landing out of 30 attempts!
Our future engineers? Nope. Most want to be lawyers or Wall Street executives, but they all love science. Go figure.
