C

This week, we took a little break from NXT activities to do the "Paper Planes" activity. For this activity, we first discussed a simplified model of the forces acting on a real plane, introducing terms like "lift" and "drag" along the way. Next, we handed out scrap paper, paper clips and an arm's length of tape to the students, and asked them to make a plane each.

To test the planes, we had a little bit of a competition. Since this had the potential of getting too chaotic, we had two categories - best straight-line flight and longest distance flown. Each plane could be entered into only one of the competitions, which reduced the number of planes in the air at any given time. Furthermore, since a large number of people were participating in the distance competition, we had a "knock-out" stage where four people competed at a time, and the winners all competed against each other at the end. Overall, it seemed to be a pretty fun activity, and a nice little break from the more intense NXT activities.