A new Robot can Design and Build Paper Plans to Test Various Designs

Mar 28, 2023

Misc

CREATE Lab engineers are having fun with a new robot that can design and build various paper planes

Remember those times we made paper planes in school and flew them to classmates to annoy them? It seems like CREATE Lab engineers have taken this pastime to the next level. They’ve designed a robot arm that can design, draw, cut, and fold paper planes before sending them through the air.

It’s not just for fun, though. The robot made 500 variations of these paper planes before sending them on their maiden voyages. What they discovered is that there’s actually a pattern that evolved among the different designs.

So, what did they discover from these test paper flights? Well, there are three primary categories. The first involves the plane nose-diving straight to the floor. With the glide mode, the object slowly drifted to the floor. Finally, you have recovery mode, where the plane dips down, goes back up, and then sails to the floor.

You can read the full scientific report here. Why is it being placed in a scientific journal? Don’t worry; they don’t think the same mechanics of a paper plane apply to real planes. They are simply hoping that the concept of testing various designs in the same way may be able to help someone out there discover patterns that improve flight for different types of planes.

Credit goes to engineers Kai Junge, Nana Obayashi, Josie Hughes, and Stefan Ili? for taking the time to experiment with such a mundane hobby. Perhaps they can do a test with different types of origami next, and I don’t mean that sarcastically.

Source: techxplore