Coordinated by the Science department, 12 teams studying Engineering Foundations in Year 9 completed the Transport Engineering module. They were tasked with designing a paper plane, propelled by a rubber band, to travel the furthest distance and stay the longest in the air.

South Australia offers enormous potential for Cedar students to pursue careers in the aviation industry, so the College’s aim is to engage students further with science, technology, engineering, and maths, in a fun and collaborative way.

Flight Time

The Engineering Prototype Plane Challenge aimed to promote teamwork, creativity, and problem-solving, while providing an enjoyable way to learn about Aviation Engineering and explore potential career paths.

The Engineering Foundations students created their own designs, built their own planes, and tested the prototypes to determine the best ones. After testing, improvements were made before the final flights.

For the distance category, each team launched their paper plane while spotters recorded distances in meters. All distances were measured from the starting line to the point where the plane touched the ground, as well as its final resting place. The winning distance was over 10 meters. For the time-in-air category, each team tried to keep their plane in flight for the longest time, with spotters recording each attempt using a stopwatch. The winning time in the air was close to 8 seconds. Each team had up to three chances to achieve their best distance and longest flight time.

Mr Herman du Preez, High School Science Teacher