5 ms·

One of the simplest methods of beating most decent planes is the crumple it into a ball and throw it method.

Ancapistani 4y ago
I won a contest in high school like that. Everyone in class was given a number of random things with instructions to build a paper airplane that flew as far as possible. We didn't have to use everything, but we could only use the components provided. From memory, there was a small block of sticky tack, a roll of transparent tape, four or five pieces of paper, and a couple of paper clips. Everyone else made various traditional paper airplanes; a few people used the paper clips to good effect to adjust the center of gravity to get a longer glide slope. I just wadded everything up into a piece of paper, wrapped the other pieces paper around it, and wrapped the whole thing in transparent tape (which I had already removed from the core, because the core was inside the ball). I just threw it as hard as I could, and it ended up going more than twice as far as anyone's paper airplanes. It probably helped that we were competing outside and throwing into a gentle breeze.
- omniglottal 4y ago
  People hate this kind of creative problem-solving. I once won a statewide competition for designing an electromagnet by selecting a core material which was already magnetic and simply aligning the winding's polarity to enhance the existing field. Nothing in the rules forbade this, and my (electro)magnet lifted the most. There was much gnashing of teeth.
  - xracy 4y ago
    I mean, I don't hate it, but it's not innovative in the way it suggests it is. "There's nothing in the rules that says a dog can't play basketball." Yeah, but like, what are we achieving with it. Part of the fun of designing within constraints is figuring out different limits. I will say I often enjoy these "thinking outside the box" attempts the first time, but that after that initial thought, it's worth rewriting the rules, because you can only get so much out of consistently thinking outside the box in the same way. "How far can a human launch a projectile?" is a different question from "how far can you throw a paper plane?" I'm okay with both of them being competitions, but they are meaningfully different and drive meaningfully different outcomes.
    - mike_d 4y ago
      > Part of the fun of designing within constraints In this example there were constraints, and they were designed within. You just don't like the result.
      - illiac786 4y ago
        no, it's like when someone is following the law to the letter but not the spirit of the law. Aka finding a loophole. No one will laud this. In this instance I'd say it's funny and a bit creative, but way less creative than the other participants trying to build actual paper planes. I think all this achieve is proving to the people who wrote the rules they made a mistake. Rules will hopefully be updated, so value is not zero, but it's not really what the spirit of the competition was about. The only instance I admire this thinking is when the "wrong" rules are not written by humans but rather preexistent. If someone manage to find out the understanding we had of the rules was wrong and finds a quicker solution because of it, that's amazing.
      - xracy 4y ago
        I didn't say I didn't like the result. In fact, I think I explicitly stated that I enjoy this kind of "out of the box" thinking, the first time.
  - xtiansimon 4y ago
    Remember the time I beat the Kobayashi Maru? Or, student wins paper airplane contest with paper rock. Haha https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kobayashi_Maru https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kobayashi_Maru

I won a contest in high school like that. Everyone in class was given a number of random things with instructions to build a paper airplane that flew as far as possible. We didn't have to use everything, but we could only use the components provided. From memory, there was a small block of sticky tack, a roll of transparent tape, four or five pieces of paper, and a couple of paper clips. Everyone else made various traditional paper airplanes; a few people used the paper clips to good effect to adjust the center of gravity to get a longer glide slope. I just wadded everything up into a piece of paper, wrapped the other pieces paper around it, and wrapped the whole thing in transparent tape (which I had already removed from the core, because the core was inside the ball). I just threw it as hard as I could, and it ended up going more than twice as far as anyone's paper airplanes. It probably helped that we were competing outside and throwing into a gentle breeze.

omniglottal 4y ago
People hate this kind of creative problem-solving. I once won a statewide competition for designing an electromagnet by selecting a core material which was already magnetic and simply aligning the winding's polarity to enhance the existing field. Nothing in the rules forbade this, and my (electro)magnet lifted the most. There was much gnashing of teeth.
- xracy 4y ago
  I mean, I don't hate it, but it's not innovative in the way it suggests it is. "There's nothing in the rules that says a dog can't play basketball." Yeah, but like, what are we achieving with it. Part of the fun of designing within constraints is figuring out different limits. I will say I often enjoy these "thinking outside the box" attempts the first time, but that after that initial thought, it's worth rewriting the rules, because you can only get so much out of consistently thinking outside the box in the same way. "How far can a human launch a projectile?" is a different question from "how far can you throw a paper plane?" I'm okay with both of them being competitions, but they are meaningfully different and drive meaningfully different outcomes.
  - mike_d 4y ago
    > Part of the fun of designing within constraints In this example there were constraints, and they were designed within. You just don't like the result.
    - illiac786 4y ago
      no, it's like when someone is following the law to the letter but not the spirit of the law. Aka finding a loophole. No one will laud this. In this instance I'd say it's funny and a bit creative, but way less creative than the other participants trying to build actual paper planes. I think all this achieve is proving to the people who wrote the rules they made a mistake. Rules will hopefully be updated, so value is not zero, but it's not really what the spirit of the competition was about. The only instance I admire this thinking is when the "wrong" rules are not written by humans but rather preexistent. If someone manage to find out the understanding we had of the rules was wrong and finds a quicker solution because of it, that's amazing.
    - xracy 4y ago
      I didn't say I didn't like the result. In fact, I think I explicitly stated that I enjoy this kind of "out of the box" thinking, the first time.
- xtiansimon 4y ago
  Remember the time I beat the Kobayashi Maru? Or, student wins paper airplane contest with paper rock. Haha https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kobayashi_Maru https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kobayashi_Maru