Flight Lab lesson plans
Each one is a class period with everything to run it: a teacher plan, a student worksheet, an exit ticket with answers, and the standards it meets. Students need no account, and a free class saves their work.
Flight Lab: How Hard Should You Throw It?
Students throw the same paper dart at ten strengths and record what each throw did. Gentle throws dive or glide; harder ones climb, slow down and tip over into a dive; the hardest loop. Some hard throws land farther than the best glide, but where they land is hard to predict. Ten throws at one strength show that no hand throws the same way twice.
FreeFlight Lab: Stop the Dive
A paper dart with flat back edges dives into the floor. Students bend both back edges up a little at a time and record each throw: too little and it dives, about 8 to 12 degrees and it glides 24 ft, more and it slows and lands short. Then a paper clip near the front moves the balance point forward and lets a big bend fly farther. They explain it as a seesaw: the wings' lift behind the balance point against the back edges' push.
FreeFlight Lab: Steer It Down the Hallway
Students bend one back edge of a paper dart up a little more than the other and watch it bank and turn toward that side: a gentle curve about a foot to the side. Bent very differently, it rolls over and falls. Then the challenge: a hallway 49 feet long, low and narrow. As it comes the dart glides 24 ft; thrown harder it hits the ceiling. Students change one thing at a time until it flies all the way.
FreeFlight Lab: Design, Test, Improve
Students take the loop engineers use, test, change one thing, test again, and write it as a three-line trim rule. The app runs it: a flat dart dove 14 ft, the rule bent the back edges up 2, and the next throw glided 16 ft, so it stopped. Students change how much the rule bends at each step and find a better trim, then fold the classic dart from a printed plan, bend its back edges, and throw it for real.