“Let’s build our spinning helicopter”

Get ready to become an aerospace engineer for a day. In this activity, children will build a small spinning helicopter using recycled materials and simple components that demonstrate how one type of movement can be transformed into another.

Once the structure is assembled, each participant will decorate their helicopter with colours, stickers, and symbols, imagining the mission it will be used for: rescue operations, exploration, transport, or helping people.

When all the helicopters are finished, we will carry out a series of tests to observe how the movement stored in a rubber band makes the rotor blades spin. We will experiment by winding the mechanism more or less and compare the speed and duration of the movement.

During the activity, we will discuss how some machines use mechanisms to store and transfer motion. Participants will observe how a rubber band can accumulate energy and then release it to make the rotor blades turn, allowing different parts of a machine to move.

This hands-on activity encourages hand-eye coordination, observation skills, creativity, and an early understanding of motion-transfer mechanisms through a practical, technological, and experimental learning experience.