Secondary School Handlaunch Glider Design Contest
21 May, 2006
 

The Hong Kong Radio Control Soaring Society (HKRCSS) is going to organize a handlaunch glider design contest for secondary school students. The contest will be held in sport ground in Fung Kai first secondary school.on 21 May, 2006. The main objective of this contest is to simulate the interest of  the youngsters in science and technology related to model glider flying.  Through the process of designing model gliders and flying them practically, students can get some insights on the aerodynamic principles of model gliding. HKRCSS is honour to co-host the contest together with several local secondary schools.  The organizer expects to attract over 200 teams of school kids participating in the contest. HKRCSS will be responsible for setting up the competition rules, giving training sessions to the  contestants, and also as one of the judges during the contest. A briefing session on the principles in the design of model gliders will be given on 22 April, 2006. Two training sessions will also be arranged for the contestants to test fly their gliders. The targeted contestants are school kids from the local secondary schools. The call for participation and application form is in this document and the contest rules are given in here.

The first seminar was held on 22 April 2006. Y.C., Stanley and Ken gave talks on the principle of soaring, building method for model glider and contest rules, respectively, to an audience of about 20 students. Here are some material given during the talk.


Y.C. is giving a talk on the principle of model flight
 
The first practice day was held in Fung Kai Secondary School in Sheng Shui on 6th May 2006. Although there are more than 34 teams registered for the contest, only two teams came for the practice day. Chester and our club helpers had more time to explain to each team how to build model planes. We even made a very practical model glider from a foam sheet on site and demonstrated the gliding capability of the built glider.


Only a foam sheet, and we can make it!


Not bad! And indeed it can fly


See how the capability of it!

Due to the rainy weather on the day of contest (21 May 2006), the contest was moved to be held in the sport hall of Fung Kai Secondary School. There were over 40 teams from various schools in the territory. They showed off their talent in the design of the contesting gliders, most of them are highly airborneable and some have very innovative shape. The contest was started 9:30am in the morning and end at around 1:30pm. Here are some photos and movies taken during the contest.


Let's have a group photo of all contestants and helpers


Launch hard and fly well


This team's plane looks good and is a very floaty


This all girls' team has a very realistic design

Surprising! This design got the longest airborne timing
These designs are highly practical

Girls have more artistic stuff embedded
This team has tried various plane sizes

This foldable wing design looks interesting
Cheers, this all girls team got some interesting ideas

This design seems not so good aerodynamically, but it has an innovative foldable wing shape
Biplane and polyhedral shape - very professional

Let's have a group photo
These gliders are similar to those we have for r/c flying - see the v-tail glider on the right!

Thank you for the sponsors Windrider and HKRCSS for these wonderful prizes
Stephen is explaining the criteria for judging who are the winners

Congratulation on the design award
Cheers, this flying wind design won a prize

This plastic plane with changeable wing shape won an innovative design award
Congratulation on winning a prize

Congratulation on winning a prize
This is for the longest duration award

HKRCSS helpers have a group photo to commemorate this event
Please see a movie for this event. Cheers