Wind Tunnel Project

The Wind Tunnel Project was an idea that I saw on line and shared on twitter. I saw different videos of children putting random objects into this wind tunnel to see what would take flight. I wanted to make this project more art centered. I started by showing the students a video of a dancer performing in a wind tunnel like you would see at Fly Zone. After the students watched the video, I said, "how did she do that? If that were me I would be flopping all over the place." The students laughed and one student said, "Because she was a dancer she was able to control her body in the wind tunnel."

We then went on to talk about aerodynamics which is the movement of air around an object. We also talked about weight and balance of an object and how much air would be needed to move an object.

I showed the students videos I viewed of other wind tunnel projects and discussed how we could make art that flies.

The students using the Design Thinking Process sketched ideas of their flying art, created a materials list, and had to make a prediction of what they think would happen to their flying art in the tunnel. Most students made sketches of rockets, but some students explored art that would spin, soar, float
and flutter.
We also looked at the artwork of Kinetic artist Patrick Shearn to get ideas for what could fly in the tunnel. The students were inspired by the beauty of his artwork.

The students discussed the movement of his artwork Liquid Shard. They talked about the materials he use and how it fluttered in the air. The materials and movement was important to his work.

We used this wind tunnel pdf  to help us build our tunnel.
The following class we conducted a test flight with just paper sculpture. We had different sizes and weights of paper, transparent tape, and glue sticks. Before the students started on their ideas I demonstrated how to cut out a snowflake and how to make a simple paper sculpture.

Then I demonstrated how my art would perform in the wind tunnel. I told students not just to notice the force of the push from the wind tunnel but how the art flies through the art when it is falling.

Student got to work right away. They had about 30 minutes to design a paper sculpture that would fly and perform in the wind tunnel. I reminded them of the performance of the dancer in the wind tunnel. At the end of class the students would share their performance art with the group.

















All the projects were very successful in their performance. Here's a video of what this team created.

This lesson covers Virginia Standards of Learning in 4th grade art:

4.1          The student will use steps of the art-making process, including brainstorming, preliminary                   sketching, planning, and reflecting, to generate ideas for and create works of art.

4.2          The student will demonstrate craftsmanship in personal works of art.

This lesson covers Virginia Standards of Learning in 4th grade science: 

4.2   The student will investigate and understand characteristics and interactions of moving
objects.
Key concepts include
a)     motion is described by an object’s direction and speed;
b)    changes in motion are related to force and mass;
c)     friction is a force that opposes motion; and
d)    moving objects have kinetic energy