Have you ever noticed how some plants scatter their seeds in autumn? Many are blown by the wind – like the dandelion. Others have wings attached to the seed and these allow the seed to fly some distance from the parent plant. Seeds with wings often spin. Look at a sycamore seed. When a breeze catches it, the air flows over the wing. The seed is lifted up.

The “wings” are called rotors and these push against the air. This makes them spin. We call it an Autogyro.

First make your own Autogyro

Use a piece of quite stiff paper and measure it out like this.	Now fold back the edges to make this shape.

Ready to fly? Drop it! What happens?

• Drop it again.
• This time think about these questions as you watch.
• Did it fall to the ground in a straight line?
• How exactly did it move?

Now put a paper clip here.

Now drop it again. What happens?

Try investigating some changes in the shapes of the rotors.

• Make the two rotor blades very thin.
• Make the two rotor blades very wide.
• Make the two rotor blades long.
• Make the two rotor blades short.
• Make one rotor blade longer than the other.

Change the outline of the rotor blade from straight cut to torn floppy edge.
Try making your autogyro from different materials. Which stays up longest?

Record each of these investigations.

• Record your investigation and compare your findings with someone who has tried the same experiment.
• Did they find the same as you?
• If they did, can you tell why?
• If not, why not?

Here’s another experiment to try out. Attach a small piece of plasticene to the end of a feather. Drop it and see what happens. Now try sticking two feathers into the same ball of plasticene. Drop this and see what happens.

Try investigating different weights of plasticene or different feather sizes.
Which spinner will stay up the longest?

This year sees the first attempt at circumnavigating the world in an auto gyro plane. To find out more and see diagrams of the plane, see the Global Eagle web site: www.globaleagle.co.uk