STEAM homeschool project

Iglooman

New member
About two years ago in the summer I came across Flite Test on Youtube. I had tried to get into RC about twenty years ago, but failed. Seeing the FT guys building cool planes out of foam board made me see that the hobby could be done affordably. This summer I flew the Tiny Trainer and introduced my nine year old daughter Abby to the hobby. She quickly got onto the Tiny Trainer on buddy box as well over the flying season. We had several date nights to the field (an hour away) after work, ending the night at Wendy's for supper after it got too dark to fly.

This winter we had several build projects we were looking at, but saw Sponz post a build contest on Facebook. I asked my daughter and she said she'd like to do it as a STEAM project for homeschool. The journey took nine days to complete. She helped tape the tiled plan papers together, then started on plotting points on the foam board with me. Once done the two sheets, she worked with me on joining the plot points. Apart from the wing, she cut all the pieces out. She did the entire fuselage sheet with multiple parts one Sunday afternoon while I was snow blowing! We assembled everything together, then she proceeded to plan out her design and sketch it onto the plane. Once she had her design in pencil, she used hobby paint for the sky, yellow for the sun, a purple flower, and ground. The rest was done in Posca marker. I've loved watching her enthusiasm grow for all aspects of rc planes - from the build to the flight.
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It's truly the work of a nine-year-old girl as you can see from the colors and content, but it was a joy to do with her, and I hope to get it up this summer at our club fun fly in July after getting some time in on a simple scout we're working on for aileron training. I can't thank Flite Test enough for the work they've done to make the hobby easy to get into. The second time has been a joy and disappointment free, plus budget friendly! If we had to buy kits, I probably wouldn't have tried it again. It makes me sad that it took so long to find Flite Test, but so glad I got to start this journey with my daughter!

If you would like to support Abby before the contest closes on the 22nd of January, 2020, you can see her entry here.

Thank you for all you do for the hobby Flite Test!
Mike & Abby
 

Iglooman

New member
I love the plane design. It is unique and colorful. It would make me smile every time I saw it in the air. well done!
Thanks! Hoping we can make it to our club's fun fly July 25th and get it up for a flight then to show off for something special, but hopefully well before then. We'll see how training goes on the Simple Scout this winter/spring. Next build will be a Sea Otter for off the lake out front. Abby wants to do a 'duck' design... I can almost see it with the motor pod as a head...