Rubber Band Powered Airplane

Hey, my name is Andres, a Sophomore in Blackstone Valley Tech, I was recently introduced to Instructables by a friend and then found interest in the “Make it Fly” challenge. I took some inspiration from a project I saw being done prior to this and decided to make my own model of it so anyone could print it and do it themselves. My project is a rubber band powered plane which flies simply by spinning the propellers. I tested it out and found it went quite far depending on where you threw it from.

For this project you will need: 

• Medium size rubber band 
• 3D printer 
• Small piece of wire 
• Thumbtack

Start out by 3D printing the body of your airplane, make sure to use the least amount of filament as possible since the lighter the plane the easier time it will have flying, note that if your printer is not big enough to print the whole body, you can shrink it and it will work just fine. The printed body should look like the image above. If you printed it in its original size, then it will look like the 3d file I have attached below, note that you will need to add a piece of paper to the gaps in order for it to work.

For MakerBot's do minimal infill 

For Creality software do 15% infill 

start off by placing your thumbtack on the lower side of the plane body.

Next, Insert your piece of wire in between piece 1 and the propeller.

Insert piece 1 into the body of the plane.

Simply twist the propeller, making the rubber band twist itself for about a minute. Then take it outside and watch it fly