Dana Edwards’ Blog

Someone knew I was fascinated with Snuggies and sent me this remarkable chart:

Ok, so we are done with 2 liter coke bottles for a while!  This one was made out of scrap paper and will be very familiar to everyone.  Brennan took a sudden interest, which lasted a whole day before he went back to electricity, in helicopters and airplanes.  This reminded me of the old paper helicopter that we made when I was young so we built some.  Here is the video first.  I dont give instructions on how to build the retrieval system but I think it is pretty self explanatory. Enjoy the video …

We used about-to-be recycled 8.5 x 11 sheets of paper and the same for construction paper.  The design was really simple and worked like a charm the first time we tried it.  You’ll see variants of it in the movie so use your imagination on how we came up with those.

Here is the pattern we used:

To build it: 

1. Print it out or sketch it on a sheet of paper. Index cards work well and last longer.
2. Cut along the line from the top to about the middle of the paper.  This will be the wings.
3. Cut 1/3 way in to the middle of the paper on the solid lines that come in from the outsides.  These will form the body of the helicopter.
4. Fold 1 of the thirds of the body to the back and one to the front.
5. Fold about 1/2 inch of the body up towards the wings. Secure it with a paper clip.
6. Fold one wing to the front and one to the back.

To fly it:

1. Hold it up high by the base.
2. Drop it.
3. Repeat step 1.

For those wanting to understand how it works. It’s actually pretty simple. When the helicopter falls, air pushes up against the blades, bending them up just a little. When air pushes upward on the slanted blade, some of that thrust becomes a sideways, or horizontal, push.The two opposing thrusts work together to cause the helicopter to spin.

Hope you enjoy it. Brennan played with them for about 3 hours and even played with his sister with them!

Dana