Description
Review
"Hands-on activities that encourage imaginations to soar." —Kirkus Reviews
"Easy-to-build and fun-to-fly contraptions." —Learning
"Takes paper airplanes to a whole new level." —The Buffalo News
"Easy to build and fun-to-fly contraptions." —Daily Courier
"Author Bobby Mercer offers clear directions and photographs to help kids complete the projects." —The Indiana Gazette
Product Description
2012 Gelett Burgess Children's Book Award Winner in Technology Category
Calling all future Amelia Earharts and Chuck Yeagers—there’s more than one way to get off the ground! The Flying Machine Book will show you how to construct 35 easy-to-build and fun-to-fly contraptions that can be used indoors or out. Better still, each of these rockets, gliders, boomerangs, launchers, and helicopters can be made for little or no cost using recycled materials. Rubber bands, paper clips, straws, plastic bottles, and index cards can all be transformed into amazing, gravity-defying flyers, from Bottle Rockets to Grape Bazookas, Plastic Zippers to Maple Key Helicopters.
Each project contains a materials list and detailed step-by-step instructions with photos, as well as an explanation of the science behind the flyer. Use this information to modify and improve your designs, or explain to your teacher why throwing a paper airplane is a mini science lesson.
About the Author
Bobby Mercer has been sharing the fun of free flight for over two decades as a high school physics teacher. He is the author of several science books and lives with his family outside Asheville, North Carolina.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
The Flying Machine Book
Build and Launch 35 Rockets, Gliders, Helicopters, Boomerangs, and More
By Bobby Mercer Chicago Review Press IncorporatedCopyright © 2012 Bobby Mercer
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-61374-086-6
Contents
Acknowledgments,
Introduction,
1 Flight School,
2 Rockets,
3 Hand-Powered Gliders,
4 Rubber Band-Powered Gliders,
5 Helicopters,
6 Launchers,
7 Boomerangs,
CHAPTER 1
Flight School
The ability to fly has amazed people since time began. The earliest humans watched birds soaring in the sky and dreamed of joining them. Kites were probably humankind's first attempt to reach the skies. The Chinese first started flying kites around 400 BO, for ceremonies and just for fun.
Leonardo da Vinci was the first person known to seriously study flight. His drawings described his theories on bird flight. Da Vinci even drew pictures of imaginary flyers that would allow a person to fly under his or her own power. Although none were built for over 400 years, his designs inspired the invention of the helicopter.
In the late 1700s, hot air gave human-powered flight a lift. People discovered that hot air rises, so a bag filled with hot air will float. This led to the invention of the hot air balloon. Hot air balloons soared over Europe in the 1780s, giving people the opportunity to realize their dreams of flying through the air.
Around 1800, Englishman George Cayley took flying in a new direction when he discovered the modern airfoil. Cayley, often called the Father of Aviation because of his studies, is acknowledged as the first person to realize that the battling forces governing flight were lift, thrust, drag, and weight. He also built the first glider capable of holding a person, and that first flyer was a 10-year-old boy. Cayley also experimented with rudders and flaps, just like you will on the flyers in this book.
Of course, the Wright brothers pioneered powered flight, but Cayley's work is more closely related to the flying machines you will be building.
Each chapter in this book focuses on one type of flyer: helicopters, rockets, boomerangs, and different types of gliders. Not all the flyers are easy to make, and many take practice to perfect. But with a little patience, your flyer can reach the sky.
The Bernoulli Principle
Daniel Bernoulli's dad, a brilliant mathematician, never wanted his so