Tactile Assisted Design: Four Forces of Flight

Divide the students into pairs. Go through these four activities one at a time, describing each activity in detail before giving the pairs a few minutes to try it themselves. Be sure to be descriptive in your word choices without relying on “showing” the activity.

WEIGHT: 

1- Hold two different pens or pencils, one in each hand. Determine which one is heavier. Guess which one is heavier. Drop then, listening for when they each hit the floor (or desk). Was it at the same time?

2- Take two pieces of paper and ball one of them up. Hold one in each hand and guess which one will hit the floor first when dropped. Find out by listening to them hit the floor or desk. What happened there?

THRUST:

1- Inflate a balloon, and squeeze the neck together. Slowly release the air while your partner holds their hand in front of the balloon’s neck. What do you feel? What will happen if you inflate the balloon with more air? What happens to the escaping air if you open the neck just a small bit with your fingers?

DRAG:

1- Cut a small and a large piece of cardboard. Take the small piece of cardboard in your hand and, holding it upright, wave it back and forth at an arm’s length.

2- Hold the larger piece of cardboard in front of you and wave it back and forth at arm’s length. What is the difference between doing this with the small piece and the larger piece.

LIFT:

1- In front of a box fan, hold your large piece of cardboard flat (parallel to the ground).

2- Slightly tilt the cardboard at an angle, try different small angles until you find one that feels like the cardboard is starting to rise.

These activities were adapted from https://www.nasa.gov/stem-content/four-forces-of-flight/

For this activity, use laser-cut gliders that were made with the same material you are using in the classroom. Make sure that each pair of students has one glider to hold and explore and then pass them to the next pair. Ask questions of the students as they pass and feel the gliders.

1- Do you think this is too heavy to fly?

2- Where does the thrust come from in a glider?

3- Which part is called the fuselage?

4- Which part of the glider is bigger, the fuselage or the wings?

5- What do you think would happen if you slid the wing piece further up on the glider? Further back?

Point out the construction that you will use in class.

1- Notice how in these gliders, the wings are together in one piece and go through the fuselage. Why do you think we make them that way?

2- Remove the wings and feel the “slot” in the fuselage. How do you determine the size of the “slot” to cut in the fuselage?

Place a bump dot sticker on the “GO” button of your laser cutter. This makes it easy for students to find the GO button later.

This step can be done in conjunction with Step 4, pull out one pair of students at a time to interact with the laser. Each student can approach the laser in pairs and feel the buttons on the front, noting the bump dot sticker for the “go” button. Let them explore the inside of the laser cutter by touching the bed and also the arm. Be careful not to touch the lens or the mirror.

Give each student:

5-6 dark colored wiki sticks.

1 12″ x 20″ piece of white Readi Board

Each student will use the wiki sticks to draw the outline of one wing of the plane on their piece of board. Students can warm up the wiki sticks to make them more pliable. They can also press the sticks onto the paper-backed Readi board so that they stick to it better. (Sighted students can use a black marker on the Readi board to design their wing.)

Having a sighted helper at this station is recommended. 

As each student finishes their design, they can take their design board up to the scanning station. Use a bump dot or a remote so that students can take their own image with the phone or tablet set up on the station.

Above is a link to purchase a station on Amazon, but you could easily make your own.

– Import into your software and trace the design

-copy/paste/mirror the wing and join it (so that you have one long wing)

-Set the laser pretty low power and fast (it is likely that you will get a flame if you go too slowly)

-Let the students press the GO button with the bump dot

While students are waiting in the laser cutting cue or if they have already assembled their gliders and are waiting for others to finish, they can begin designing a vinyl cut sticker using TAD.

Use black/purple/or dark playdough, wiki sticks, construction paper and scissors for students to create their sticker designs on their design boards.

The students will use the scanning station as before, but then a helper will assist them in cutting their designs on the vinyl cutter. Students will then weed their stickers, and transfer them to the glider.

If you have a magnifier, students can use that to help in designing on their boards as well.

Supervise the students for glider testing in the hallway. Sighted helpers are necessary in this step.

Each student can throw their glider and then may need help finding it along the hallway. Have the students count the steps and estimate the distance from where they threw it to where it landed.

Students can then return to their design board and move the wiki sticks around to change the wing shape.

Encourage the students to make a hypothesis about what will happen (and why) when then change their wing design. This process of iterating a design is important in the engineering design process.

This lesson plan was designed and tested by Jon Doctorick and Stephen Luciano from Fab Lab Carnegie Science Center and Liz Whitewolf, eduFAB, with assistance from the PA Bureau of Blindness and Visual Services.