Maxine relives last year’s cart project while dreaming of just how fast she might go this year.

While getting ready for the first project to start, a biplane does some aerobatics demonstrations overhead. We never once saw this plane during Session One – coincidence, or premonition?

Gever has the first unofficial injury of Session Two: a small mishap with the shaver while cutting his hair this morning. The scrape was wide – but not deep.

Emma immediately proves herself extremely capable with the hot glue gun. She crafts a beautiful (but perhaps a bit heavy) identification for her mesh mess kit bag.

Samir prefers some wide open spaces when doing free-form foamcore cutting. Later it’s suggested that he cut his piece from an edge, rather than the middle, in order to leave one larger piece for next time.

I don’t think Leo intended his fuselage as a musical instrument, but it looks like he’s trying it out none-the-less. Or maybe he’s just trying to remove a small piece of foam he’s just cut?

Toby is going with the classic glider design. He’s also quite experienced with the hot glue – note the bolts used to keep the frame off the table, so the underside can be glued as needed.

After some scissor usage tips from Gever, Leo puts his all into cutting a piece of fabric for his glider.

Is it a type of prayer wheel, or is Maxine just looking for the end of the roll?

Since Theo can practically make a model airplane in his sleep, we had to come up with special constraints for him so it would be a challenge. The result: he must use all natural materials. It does, indeed, appear that we successfully stumped him! Or at least gave him pause for thought.

Tywen decides to use the copper wire to hold the wing in a dihedral. But he’s only found some short pieces, so must wire them together to create a longer strand.

The parents were kicked out about an hour ago, and already the barn is fully back in action.

I believe this was the first test flight of the day (at least outdoors). Toby’s glider would often glide perfectly, with a sudden change of attitude or direction to end the flight. Nevertheless, he enjoyed launching it and did so repeatedly throughout the afternoon.

Jacob supports the structure while Theo tries to lash the reeds together with string. After a gallant effort, we soften and let him use some tape.

Tywen gives up on the wire, since it’s too hard to keep it taut and changes to string. Tom holds the wing, Bryan holds the knot, and Tywen ties.

Emma tries out her biplane. The wind outside produces varying conditions, so further tests are done in the barn, to minimize the variables.

Bryan in video-documentarian mode. Now just ignore the guy with the very large camera looming over your shoulder. (It will be good practice for later in the week, when the 2-person camera crew shows up.)

Maxine’s test flight already shows a portent of things to come, and it hasn’t even left her hand (you can tell, since it’s still above her head).

Isaac ponders his raft design (extremely daring for a structure intended for flight), while Tywen hot glues more ballast (was it on the nose or tail this time?) and Leo considers whether perhaps it’s not the glider, but his launch technique.

Having thought through the optimal launch technique, Leo is ready for another test flight. Upwind, downwind – this launch technique doesn’t care.

Tywen’s test reveals that perhaps that weight added to the nose was a bit too much? Or maybe it just needs some weight at the tail as well?

Robyn demonstrates the favored centering technique to Toby, so he can affix his payload (a hex nut passenger). When the wind picks up, his glider has a kite-like tendency.

With a clean launch technique and the payload affixed, Toby’s glider has a nice line.

Isaac has abandoned the flying raft and gone back to his original glider, with a slightly more traditional wing shape. However, he quickly remembers why he abandoned it – it has a tendency to launch nearly vertically and then flip over and dive to the ground.

Samir has created a glider intended to be launched from an aircraft carrier. Since we are on a ranch, he builds a bungee launcher and enlists Tom and Toby to assist. During the first launch, the glider hangs up on the launcher. Much fine tuning commences.

Maxine’s large craft requires some significant energy to get airborne (and also ended up needed significant weight in the nose – multiple large hex nuts, when the requirement was only to carry one). She definitely gets style bonus points for the follow-through, though.

Toby decides to go meet Spice, the llama. He’s been warned that we have found the llama to be completely mysterious: we have no idea when it’s happy, irritated, wants to be petted or plans to spit. We think this is Spice’s i’m-curious-maybe-you-can-pet-me look.

Emma’s hex nut creation demonstrates Theo’s favorite feature of hot glue: parts can later be separated given sufficient force in the right orientation. After a long drop in the kitchen, several of the nuts break off. Luckily there was wire handy for a new incarnation of the design.

I’m not sure if the rules specified that gliders must be hand-launched, but this launcher is a lot easier to control than the ground-based one. Samir seems satisfied.

Maxine is happy with her flight. Hopefully Bryan got the whole thing on tape (literally – he’s shooting tape so it will be a little while before we post any footage).

Theo normally knows exactly what to expect from his model planes. He seems to have amazed himself with this reed and fabric glider (we let him use ripstop nylon instead of pine needles for the surface).

No sign of Emma’s beautiful biplane (which might have suffered from a lack of surface area – hard to increase in that design without starting over). For version two, she explores the most minimal design.

Theo’s glider carries its payload/passenger well below, mimicking classic hang glider design.

After dinner and flight testing the model gliders, Gever brings out the notebook he’s created. It’s full of images of early foot-launched glider designs (Otto Lillenthal’s, Francis Rogallo’s, the Bamboo Butterfly).

Toby’s little glider is compared and contrasted to Theo’s much larger glider. Toby’s glider tended to be squirrely, particularly if there was any wind at all. The biggest difference between them? Size.

Jacob is put to the task of salvaging as much of the paragliding line as possible from this old wing. It’s spectra (or maybe this version is dyneema), so very thin, light and strong.

It turns out a whole case of tangerines were put in a freezer by accident, so they now become goat food. Since they’re cold and hard, the goats just sort of mouth them for a while, before they’re soft enough to eat. Or maybe they just like playing with their food?

With all that talk about Otto’s Notebook and how gliders fly and how they’re going to build 3 hang gliders and actually fly them, it’s time for the serious math. Even once the square roots and pythagoreun theorums are worked out, there are still too many variables. Like how much weight will it actually need to carry (hard to know, since we don’t know the weight of the craft itself).

Gever demonstrates Otto’s original design with a paper towel and a chopstick. It helps everyone visualize that particular design, but still doesn’t answer the math questions.

Once some initial numbers are tossed around, we realize we don’t even know how much a 20′ segment of large PVC weighs – and can it be sufficiently hoisted? Isaac demonstrates that 2-20′ sections plus a crossbar are not only cumbersome, but have a lot of flex.

The more the numbers are revisited, the less clear which is the right path – as Tywen demonstrates.

It’s decided that with so many unknowns, it would be best to make one glider as quickly as possible and test it. If it’s sufficient to carry the heaviest Tinkerer, then there’s no more math. If it’s not, then at least we’ll have more data (how heavy is the craft, does it carry a lighter passenger, how can it be improved, etc). With an initial sketch of the plan, it’s time to call it a night.

Yes, the camera was hit by the plane. No, the plane was not destroyed by Robyn’s “relaunch”.