Science Fair Wing Lift Project

My son decided to do a science fair display showing how an airfoil works (3rd grade). Well, he has a cool dad with a cnc router and 3d printer, so we got to spend some time together and had a lot of fun.

The wing was cut on a cnc router in rigid foam from Home Depot (we wore respirators of course....well he did and I learned a lesson). You could 3d print this with no problem and get good results. The grommets are fit through the rigid foam of the wing to give a smooth surface for the vertical metal support rods to hold the wing in place, while in front of a diffused fan, and allow uninhibited lift to occur.

The fan used was a "Vornado" room fan

I used some scrap metal rod I had and attached in to some scrap wood by drilling tight fit holes.

The highlight of the display showed how the airfoil worked to create lift. We would flip the wing over and show that lift was still created, but in the opposite direction (forcing the wing down to the wood surface).

I recommend putting some filter material or a window screen in front of the fan to distort the vortex created by the fan.

There was an issue with the vortex created by the fan, so we also designed and cnc cut a fan diffuser out of corrugated plastic. This is placed in front of the fan to reduce the circular flow of air. Not absolutely necessary, but hey, why not.