500 Harris St Ultimo

PO Box K346 Haymarket NSW 1238

Australia
Tel: 02 6217 0111
http://play.powerhousemuseum.com
This work is licensed under the Creative
Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-
ShareAlike 2.5 License.

THE CRAFT TABLE
Make & Do Activity Kit
Paper helicopter
Everyone knows how to make a paper plane, but how
about a paper helicopter? This simple activity transforms
a piece of paper into a spinning aircraft in a few easy
steps.
Time: 15 minutes
Difculty:
Hint: There are some interesting variations
to this activity on page 2 that you might like to
try.
Cut along the solid lines
marked with scissors (not
forgetting the thinner solid
lines marked with little
scissors)
1.
Following the dotted lines,
fold A towards you, and fold
B away from you to create
a crease. Now unfold to
make helicopter blades sit
horizontal as shown.
2.
Fold C behind E. Fold D
behind E.
3.
Fold along dotted line E and
fold tab behind.
4.
Attach a paper clip to the
bottom of your helicopter.
5.
To y your helicopter hold
it by the paperclipped end
and drop straight down
from a height.
6.
template (contains 3
helicopters)
scissors
coloured A4 paper
What you will need:
9
Page 2
500 Harris St Ultimo
PO Box K346 Haymarket NSW 1238
Australia
Tel: 02 6217 0111
http://play.powerhousemuseum.com
This work is licensed under the Creative
Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-
ShareAlike 2.5 License.

THE CRAFT TABLE
Make & Do Activity Kit
Whats going on?
Why does the helicopter spin?
The helicopter is really an
auto-gyro. As it falls, air pushes
against the paper blades causing them to bend
a bit. When air pushes upward on the slanted
blade, some of that thrust becomes a sideways, or
horizontal, push.
Because there are two blades, each getting the
same push, but in opposite directions, the two
opposing thrusts work together causing it to spin.
Paper helicopter
What else can i do?
Next time you drop your helicopter, notice which
direction it spins as it falls. Is it clockwise or
anticlockwise?
Try bending the blades in the opposite directions
(e.g. if blade A was bent toward you and blade
B was bent away then, bend B toward you and A
away).
Drop the copter again. Now which way does it spin?
Take out the paper clip from the bottom of your
helicopter and compare how if ies with and
without the paperclip.
Which one ys better?
Did you know?
Igor Sikorsky designed the rst successful helicopter
in the late 1930s. His inspiration came from
drawings of an aircraft with a spinning wing, drawn
by Leonardo da Vinci nearly ve hundred years
before
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