iOi · Wind Tunnel

What it is

Children make a lightweight flyer and test it in the tunnel. The example board is headed Can you make it fly? and pins up five makes with the built object beside each label.

The example cutouts are aerodynamic animals:

kingfisherbullet train

Get the detail right before printing it. The train is the 500 Series Shinkansen, not the flat-nosed 700 in most photographs, and the kingfisher solved tunnel boom, the bang heard hundreds of metres from a tunnel mouth, not going faster. The beak enters water without a splash; the nose was shaped to enter air the same way. Owl feather serrations quieten the same train's pantograph. The biomimicry research has the photographs and says which parts of the popular version are not well evidenced.

The paper helicopter is a sycamore seed. A samara autorotates as it falls, and the template is that shape in paper: the one make here with a nature example a child can hold in the other hand.

The five makes

Specialist kit

The tunnel, with the mesh attached before the day. The fan repair kit travels with it.

Cut in advance

Three trays of strips: cellophane, thick paper, thin paper. Refilled from stock through the day.

Printed

The helicopter template, A4 mono, one per child. The sign, A3 colour.

Helicopter

One printed template.

Cut down the middle from the top, and a notch in at each side.

Fold the two side flaps in over the body.

Bend one blade forward and the other back, then drop it.

Hovercraft

An empty pot and four strips of paper.

Bend each strip into a loop and tape the ends together.

Cross the loops and tape them together at the middle.

Sit the pot on the loops, open end down.

Ring

One strip of thick coloured paper.

Cut a slot in from the top at one end and from the bottom at the other.

Bring the two ends round and slot them together.

Press one side flat and it becomes a fish.

Jellyfish

A circle of cellophane and three long strips.

Gather the strips at one end and tape them into a bundle.

Tape the bundle under the middle of the circle.

Hold it in the airflow. The circle domes and the strips trail.

Parachute

A square of emergency blanket, four lengths of yarn and a pipe cleaner.

Tape a length of yarn to each corner of the sheet.

Gather the four ends and tie them to the pipe cleaner.

Hold it in the airflow. The sheet opens.

Straws are on the list for younger children. The fair advertises ages 7 to 17.

Materials

Pick: display boarddisplay board holderfan repair kitsuperglueglue gunglue gun sticksglue sticksmasking tapeclear sellotapeyarnscissorspipe cleanersballoonsstrawspaper cupscoloured cellophanecoloured paper (thick)coloured paper (thin)tissue paperemergency blanketsfeatherslight junk
Print: paper helicopter templateexample cutoutssign
Make: wind tunnelboard examplecut strips

All 28 rows carry a quantity and a basis. The item names come from the Activities and materials board; the figures beside them are proposed.

Safety

Children handle	Scissors, children's scissors. Pipe cleaners, balloons, straws and paper cups are per child.
Adults handle	Glue guns, adult use only. Superglue, staff use only.
First aid

The fan repair kit is not a first aid kit. It holds dowels, cable ties, a small hook and pliers, and it is for the tunnel.

Notes

The board and the list agree. The board names five makes, the material list four. Liber, 19 August 2026: the descriptions are incomplete, not in conflict. Nothing was removed.
Three makes have a printed strip. Helicopter, Hovercraft and Ring. Jellyfish and Parachute are drawn from the pinned objects.
Nature in Motion is the station, not a second activity. This is the fly activity on it, alongside junk modelling vehicles and Rockets.
Ran paired before. At English Martyrs it ran with Junk Modelling as one station, junk makes tested in the tunnel.
Already made. Five wind tunnel assets sit on the content asset management board, three with working links.

Linked activities

Moon BuggiesRockets

Choose from Core activities

What this record still needs

A power source. The activity has a fan and two glue guns. No socket, extension lead, plug or battery appears in the 28 material rows or anywhere in the record. It is a question for the venue.
Type and duration. No source states either, and the activity has no PDF in the core activities inbox.
Themes. Proposed to the orchestrator on 19 August 2026 and held back from the record until the wording is reconciled across the other activities.
The first aid line. Empty in the table above, and the only kit named against this activity is for the tunnel.
Quantities found rather than proposed. Every row has a figure; the figures come from a template, not from a board.
Two panels of the hovercraft strip. Its middle two panels are not legible in the photograph, so those steps are read off the object instead.
Whether the hovercraft and the flying cup are one make. Both are a vessel plus paper strips. The board's body is a food tub, the list says paper cup.
What the helicopter template's small circle is. Its printed step 1 marks a circle on the body and step 4 shows a short band at the foot. No paper clip is on the material list.

Not part of the activity record

Questions for you

Is the fish reading of the ring right?

The printed strip's step 4 shows an open loop meeting a flat pointed piece at one pinch point. Pressing the ring flat and giving the strip a half twist both draw like that, and the material list names ring and fish shapes.

Pressed flatThe ring is pinched at one side and becomes a fish. Half twistThe strip is twisted once before the ends are slotted.

What are the hovercraft's middle two steps?

Those panels are not legible in the photograph. The steps drawn here are read off the pinned object, an inverted food tub on wide paper loops.

What does a child do first at the stall?

Each make now has an order. No source says how a child chooses between the five, or whether the facilitator sets one for the day.

Child picksThe five on the board are the menu. One make setThe facilitator picks and everyone does it. Tunnel firstPut something in the airflow, then make a better one.

More feedback

Wind Tunnel.

What it is

The five makes

Specialist kit

Cut in advance

Printed

Helicopter

Hovercraft

Ring

Jellyfish

Parachute

Materials

Safety

Notes

Linked activities

What this record still needs

Questions for you