Showing posts with label symmetry. Show all posts
Showing posts with label symmetry. Show all posts

Wednesday 26 June 2013

Negative into positive with a paper aeroplane

Inferior models

Irritated by paper aeroplanes being thrown in your classroom? It happens to all of us during out teaching career at one time or another, some ‘character’, usually a boy, has learnt how to make a paper aeroplane and uses your class to demonstrate his new found skill. I am always amazed at the poor level of construction of these missiles; they are usually just successive folds along a central axis, a demonstration of symmetry. My dad taught me a far more intricate and aesthetically pleasing method but I’m not sure if it flew as far as the, in my opinion, inferior models.