Do you like paper planes? Here’s a different glider to try, made from cups. You might be surprised at the path it takes when it flies!
* Note: Foam or plastic cups work best, but paper cups can still be used
Trouble-shooting: If the glider keeps bumping into the hand holding the launcher, make sure the launcher runs across the top of the thumb of the hand that’s holding it.
As the cups spin, air curves around one side (blue arrow) and the cups are pushed the other way (red arrow).
Image: Wikimedia commons/MatSouffNC858s CC BY-SA 4.0
This cup glider’s flight might seem surprising, but scientists have been studying the cause for hundreds of years. It’s known as the Magnus effect, and it’s named after Heinrich Gustav Magnus, a scientist who studied the phenomenon almost 170 years ago. He wasn’t the first to look into it though – Isaac Newton noticed its effect on tennis balls 180 years earlier.
The Magnus effect is most commonly seen in ball sports. From a bending soccer ball, to a back-spinning table tennis shot, the Magnus effect explains why spinning balls curve as they fly through the air.
Although you’ve seen it in action in this activity, it’s still hard to explain exactly why it happens. Here’s one way of looking at it. As the cups fly through the air, the rotation means the air flows smoothly over the top of the cups, and eventually curves around and down. In return, the air pushes upwards on the cups, making them fly higher.
One use for the Magnus effect is in transportation. In 1930, American inventors flew a plane with rotating cylinders instead of wings, but it was not very popular. A more modern use is for powering ships – a large cargo ship known as E-Ship 1 has four giant rotors sticking up like chimneys. When the wind blows and the cylinders are spinning, the Magnus effect pushes the ship forward!
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13 August, 2018 at 5:20 pm
Intresting!
6 March, 2020 at 8:12 am
interesting
16 April, 2020 at 12:31 am
u saved me from bad grades! thank u!
6 May, 2020 at 7:04 am
yes, very interesting.
26 February, 2021 at 4:36 am
how do i do that it is so coooooooooooool
8 February, 2022 at 3:57 am
so umm i kinda wanna use this for my project but I don’t idk