Brownie Fling Flyer Badge Via Zoom

One of the mechanical engineering badges for Brownies is "Fling Flyer" which is basically a rubber band propelled airplane.  We did it this week via Zoom and I'm sharing my plan and results.

Requirements:

In the Fling Flyer Design Challenge, Brownies explore the forces that affect flight as they design, build, and test a Fling Flyer. Brownies learn how to design an investigation-and fine-tune their designs after testing it.

1: Learn about forces that affect flight

2: Design and build a Fling Flyer

3: Test your Fling Flyer

4: Analyze and share your results

 

5: Brainstorm ways to improve your design

 

VTK Plans:

As it does for most other badges, VTK breaks this badge into two meetings.  The girls begin the first meeting by making and decorating paper airplanes.  After the opening ceremony,  girls fly the paper airplanes and the leader talks about the forces that affect flying (script given).  Then the leader passes out materials and a VTK provided photo of a fling flyer and the girls are supposed to reverse-engineer the plane and make it, either individually or in groups.  First, they draw a design.  

At the beginning of the second meeting, girls can rebuild, improve or decorate the planes they made at the last meeting.  During the opening ceremony, the leader reviews the concepts taught at the last meeting. Then she says they are going to have a contest with the fling flyers and that they need to decide on goals, because engineers design products to meet certain goals. She also points out that engineers design and redesign many times to meet goals.  After the girls pick the goals, such as flies fastest, flies furthest or gets closest to target, the leader allows them to redesign their flyers.  Then they have a contest and record data about the winners.  Next, they discuss their results and which planes did the best and what design features they share, and about the importance of data gathering and data analysis.  They talk about what they would change if they were going to build another fling flyer.  

VTK Resources:

Resources VTK provides to help with this badge include:

• A Materials List
• A photo of a completed fling flyer
• A glossary of words to know

My Meeting:

As noted above, we did this badge via Zoom.  I usually stick pretty close to the VTK/Badge insert plans for most badges, but because of our format and the trouble I had making the flyer I went more for the spirit of the badge than what I usually do.  

First I put together kits for the girls that had straws, dowels, craft sticks rubber bands and a paperclip.  Parents picked them up.  

After we said the Girl Scout Promise, I taught them to shoot rubber bands across the room by putting them over craft sticks, near the top, pulling back on the rubber band and letting it go.  Once the girls could reliably shoot the rubber bands, I reminded them that in order to make things move, we need energy and asked where the energy in the rubber band came from.  Someone said "from my arm" and I reviewed the concepts of potential energy and kinetic energy that we had learned at our last meeting (Leap Pot--post to come).

Next, I asked each of them to pick up a craft stick and a piece of paper, and then to let go.  We talked about how gravity was the force that pulled them to the floor.  I asked which fell faster, and they said the stick, and that the paper fluttered. I asked why, and they said because the stick was heavier.  Then I got a piece of poster board and told them it was heavier than the craft stick.  I asked if they thought it would drop straight down or flutter.  I got mixed opinions, so I did the experiment and then pointed out that the reason the paper and the poster board fluttered is that compared to their weight, they had a large surface area, and that's what airplanes get with wings.

Paper airplanes were our next activity.  I led them through making them a step at a time, and after each step we threw the airplane.  It wasn't until the last step that they flew well.  We talked about how the shape changed and it became narrow at the front, wide at the back.  

Then we moved to the fling flyers and again I led them through step-by-step.  The girls had parents there with them and it took a bit to get the fling flyers together.  We tried them and they worked.

As noted above, at the second meeting the girls are supposed to test and improve their fling flyer, and to collect and analyze data.  I decided to do this step with paper airplanes instead since my girls were by themselves, with no other fling flyer to compare theirs to, and those things were too much trouble to make to make another one.  I had each girl make another paper airplane and told her to either come up with another design or to use a different kind of paper.  We labeled one airplane #1 and one #2.  

We drew a data chart that said fastest, farthest and target.  I had them throw both airplanes at the same time to see which was fastest, and they recorded the data.  I had them repeat the test a total of three times.  We also did farthest and tried to hit a target.  Most of the girls had one plane that was obviously better than the other and we talked about why--and how they would make a paper airplane next time.  

My Comments

I get where they are coming from with the design, build, test, revise process, I just have trouble implementing it.  The mechanical engineering badges were first designed by Goldiblox, which makes lego-like toys---in other words pieces that snap together to build what you want, and the badges were written to use kits that cost a pretty penny.  I used Legos when I did the racecar badge and we did test and revise--revising was easy and took just a few minutes.  Even with one-on-one help, making this fling flyer took a good bit of time, and tape.  I figured my parents would rebel if we had to make changes to it, or to make another one to test against.  Honestly, as much trouble as they were to build, I doubt we would have revised them if we were meeting in person.  

I picked the mechanical engineering badges to do via Zoom because they had a clearly defined task and required little girl to girl interaction.  I'll be the first to admit I don't much like Zoom meetings and am feeling my way through them.  I decided to go virtual when the numbers in my area climbed and the weather moved us indoors.  I just decided I wasn't comfortable inside and the weather isn't predictably nice in January and February so we Zoomed.  

If you are interested in this badge, besides reviewing the VTK plans you can search for Youtube videos--there are several--and you can review at-home plans from Girl Scouts of Southeast Florida and from Girl Scouts of Northeast Kansas and Northwest Missouri.