Stem at home
Parachutes: Assembling parachutes
Assembling parachutes
Below are instructions for making three different parachutes of different sizes and materials. The first is a small plastic canopy parachute. Second is a medium size parachute with a cotton handkerchief for canopy. The last is a parachute made from a sheet of newspaper. Again, don’t be limited by what we show. Be creative! Experiment!
1. Collect materials: 9” plastic square, four 10” plastic strips, tape, Lego figure
2. Lay out the plastic square and tape one plastic strip to each corner.
3. Attach the free end of each plastic strip to the weight (in this case, the Lego figure).
4.Now, see how it falls. In the video the parachute falls quite fast. To slow it you could try a lighter load.
1.Collect materials: cloth handkerchief (ours is 15” x 15”), four 18” pieces of string, toy
2. Lay out cloth square and tie one string to each corner.
3. Join the free end of each string together with a knot. (in this case, the Lego figure).
4. Tie the four strings to the toy
5.Test it.
This parachute with the metal toy as load fell much too fast. So we tried a much lighter load: two small bull dog clips. It is still pretty fast.
1.. Collect materials: 22” paper square, two 22” paper strips, tape, a plastic clip, and more weight if needed (a container and things to put in it.)
2. Lay out paper square and tape one strip to a corner and tape the other end to the diagonal corner. Tape the second strip to the other two corners corner.
3. . Connect the middles of the two strips together with a clip at their middles
4.Add more weight to the clip, if needed.
