Paper plane folding competition, young people crumpled up the paper and threw it, took the first prize

Tokyo University of Technology is a pioneer in nearly all aspects of science and technology in Japan, from cancer research to sports science to male cosmetology.

Not long ago, the engineering department of the school held a contest for students with the request “Fold and improve the paper airplane to fly the farthest”. The prize for the winner is 10,000 yen (equivalent to more than 2 million VND).

The contest attracted the participation of the best students of the school. They spend a lot of time and effort drawing the improvements, calculating the aerodynamics as well as the folding lines so that the plane flies as straight and as far as possible.

When the competition took place, they showed off new models of aircraft. However, a young man surprised both the judges and the contestants by holding a blank sheet of paper. He put a stone inside, crumpled up the paper, and threw it. Of course, his “super product” flew almost the farthest with a distance of nearly 100 meters in the “surprise, bewilderment and backlash of everyone”.

After that, this guy automatically received the third prize of the program. What about the first prize? It belonged to another guy who also entered the contest with a crumpled sheet of paper. Instead of a stone, this student put 20 paper clips inside (the maximum allowed by regulations) to increase the motivation for the “sewing machine”.

On June 1, the guy who received the third prize uploaded an image of his award certificate with his “super plane” on his personal Twitter named Terurun. The post quickly attracted the attention of the online community.

The award reads: “This certificate expresses commendation for the outstanding results you achieved in the paper airplane engineering competition”.

Terurun said he originally planned to build a regular paper airplane, but found that his product (as well as many others) only flew about 3 meters. From “experience” or throwing paper rolls into the trash from a distance, Terurun thinks it is more effective when he throws a piece of paper instead of folding the plane.

Terurun initially entered a more conventional paper plane but found that during previous warm-ups, their plane, as well as everyone else’s, had only flown about three meters. They know from experience tossing paper with a mistake in the trash that they can throw a paper ball further than that.

However, according to Terurun, the way he curls the paper is also an artistic “sky”. He tried to make the paper as compact as possible to reduce drag and make it as spherical as possible to fly further.

However, a bad throw in the semifinals prevented Terurun from reaching a higher position. “If I had played baseball and had more strength, I could have won second place,” he said.

With two “super products” of paper balls winning the first and third prizes of the contest, many Twitter users expressed their confusion about the concept of “paper airplane”.

One person commented: “This is a really cool idea. Infinite IQ came up with this. It looks like a Crew Capsule model of Blue Origin.” However, there are also people who argue that it is not a real crafting technique. In the end, though, the winners demonstrated core principles in creating an efficient and low-cost design.