✈️ Flight & Cargo Engineering: Designing Systems That Deliver

In this hands-on engineering unit, students become aerospace engineers and problem solvers, challenged to design, test, and improve flight systems that can safely and efficiently transport cargo. Working in collaborative design teams, students move through the full engineering design process — from defining a real-world problem to testing, redesigning, and communicating a final solution.

Students investigate three different flight systems—paper gliders, rubber band–powered planes, and real drones—to understand how engineers use different approaches to solve the same challenge. Along the way, students explore the forces of flight, stability, energy transfer, and constraints, collecting and analyzing data to guide their design decisions. Failure is treated as a critical part of learning, and students are encouraged to iterate, refine, and improve their designs using evidence.

The unit culminates in a Flight & Cargo Engineering Challenge, where teams present their final designs, compare the effectiveness of different flight systems, and defend their engineering choices using data and real-world connections to aviation and drone technology.

Student Challenges Include:

📌 Defining and delimiting a cargo transport engineering problem
📌 Investigating lift, drag, thrust, weight, and stability
📌 Designing and testing paper gliders and rubber band–powered aircraft
📌 Analyzing drone performance as a real-world engineering benchmark
📌 Collecting, graphing, and interpreting flight data
📌 Redesigning solutions based on testing and failure
📌 Communicating engineering ideas through sketches, data, and presentations
📌 Demonstrating collaboration, perseverance, and problem-solving skills

Final Products May Include:

• A student engineering notebook or planning packet

• Design sketches and labeled engineering drawings

• Tested and improved flight prototypes

• Data tables, graphs, and failure analyses

• A final presentation or Flight & Cargo Engineering Challenge showcase

Learning Areas:

Engineering & Design • Physical Science (Forces & Motion) • Data Analysis • Problem Solving • Communication Skills • Collaboration & Perseverance