The Huffman Prairie Flying Field is where the Wright brothers first initially got their glider to turn and fly until running out of gas. The catapult pictured near the hangar was used in these tests. To celebrate the legacy of the field and of the Wright brothers’ experiments here I thought it would be fun to engage users in a competition of sorts.
First users would select a body and sets of wings with which to construct a plane. given enough options users could create several unique planes each with different flying ability. This simple structure for plane parts was inspired by small 2-d puzzle toys and could use thin pieces of wood as a material. Hopefully these plane parts would be ablate withstand multiple flights before breaking.
After snapping the pieces together a scaled down catapult could be used to launch the planes in a competition of flying capabilities.
This exercise is meant to capitalize on the nature of competition and want to conquer discussed in reflections in this section. It also shares the story of the Wright brothers and allows for a recreation of some of their days spent at Huffman Prairie. For example the building of model planes in the hangar here, or using similar catapults could be enlightening and fun for users.
