Can People Fly? Investigating Human Flight Possibilities

[Travis_King]

When you say "N" and "J" are they truly sybols or are they units? Like "Requires 500 N" and "The amount of energy requried is one million 'J' "

Or...For a 7th grader, it's kind of hard to do this topic justice. Maybe a study on the feasibility of past designs? There have been plenty of flying-man designs. I'm almost positive all non-gliders have failed, but I'm sure they had some good components to them. Study what worked and what didn't.

I.e. This one had a large wingspan but it was too heavy
This one had the right mechanisms but it was too hard for a person to operate

That kind of stuff.

 

[shelbygirl]

Thank you for the responses!

First - I was wondering what the symbols meant just as you wrote "500 J".

Second - I wish I could convince her to change the subject. She very much wants to know about actual human flight. She gets upset when she finds something telling her it is not possbile. I am having her write down all of the reasons why it is not possible so she might find and alternative.

This is her idea. Create some kind of "mind connection" to the attachable wings. Think of the "mind flex" toys and "Doc. Oct" from Spiderman. She has researched the use of brainwaves to move objects - mind flex. The limitation is that the user has to concentrate very much so in order to "move" the object. We also discussed how nerves work.

My thought was if she followed up on this idea, perhaps she could refine it enough to be applied elsewhere - ie allowing parapalegics the ablility to walk or allowing MS patients to use other parts of the brain to overcome damaged parts. (I have MS so she liked that idea)

I degress, What do you all think of the "mind connection" to attachable wings?

 

[shelbygirl]

please excuse the spelling

 

[Travis_King]

a "J" is a Joule. A unit of energy.
An "N" is a Newton, a unit of Force

Second. It's great to encourage out-side the box thinking. But I don't care how hard you concentrate, your mind alone isn't going to provide the energy requried to sustain powered flight...
But it is a science fair. A study of potential applications of this technology (I haven't heard of it...I don't think it is for actually "moving" things, but for providing the data for control, perhaps?) is probably a pretty good option.