Nolan’s hypothesis: “I think the motorized launcher will win because it’s probably more powerful than a rubber band.”

Hubert’s hypotheses: “I think that the slingshot will win because it is used on aircraft carriers.”

We searched paper airplane launcher designs on google images. and watched a moark rober video about zipline the glider company. other than that our project didn't require that much research.

Controlled Variable: paper airplane design, table hieght, angle, paper.

Manipulated Variable: launcher

Represented Variable: distance

First, we will fold the paper airplane with a4 paper. Secondly, we will place the launchers on a 2 foot high table at an angle of 16.88 degrees. Next, we will take the plane and launch it in the elastic-powered launcher, record the distance, and  redo it three times. Then, we will find out the average. Finally, we will test out the electric one with the same procedure. 

Hubert and I set up the experiment by putting our 2 launchers on a table 2 feet high, then we figured out the angle of my launcher and by using lego replicated it on Hubert's. Then we folded a paper airplane and loaded Hubert's design. we tested it three times. First, we got 448cm, the next one we got 750cm and the last one 540cm .Then we did the same with Nolan's. For test 1 we got 107 cm, on test 2 we got 101 cm and on test 3 we got 105 cm. Huberts design went 5.5x farthen than Nolan's.

We tested the launchers 3 times each and from the motor test we found that it went very straight, and went relativley the same difference. for the slingshot launcher it had a lot of power but went all over the place. It also took a long time to set up. Maybe if we had a more powerful motor it could keep up with the slingshot better.  

In conclusion, we learned that a slingshot powered paper airplane launcher can shoot a paper airplane farther than a motorized one. However there are many different factors that come into play when shooting airplanes, like accuracy, power, and height. Based on our observations we found that the motor launcher was more consistent with accuracy and distance than the slingshot. So if you would want some of these traits motors might be the way to go.

This experiment proves to be useful in the real world because of its applications. Firstly, this test proves that slingshots are beter and can be used for launching small aircrafts short distances. Additionally, This test showed that slingshot can shoot faster which would help with lifting up a glider while flying. Lastly we found out that different launchers work best in different situations so choosing the right type of launcher would help with energy efficient flying.

There were many possible sources of error like the amount of power for example. The slingshot could have more power then the motors so it wasnt really fair. Another thing is our measurement due to us being humans we make mistakes so each test may give or take a few centimeters. Lastly, since Huberts slingshot was really powerful it messed up the back so we made a new one for each test and the folds may have been off a bit which could have resulted in varied tests. 

                                                   paper airplane design google search, Amazon, Mark Rober, Tinkercad

Thanks to Nolan's dad for helping us fill out the form and showing us how to make a line graph. Thanks to Nolan's mom for giving us a space to work with and giving us sources of error. Thanks to Hubert's mom for helping us come up with the idea. Thanks to Ms. Tang for providing tips and supporting us through the science fair. And thanks to both of us for building a launcher for the project.