Questacon took to the skies last week with a one-hour webinar on planes and the physics of flight. The webinar was part of a ‘Virtual Week in Canberra’ hosted by Distance and Rural Technology (DART) Learning.
Over the week, thousands of schools across Australia dialled in to virtually visit some of Canberra’s iconic cultural institutions, including Questacon, Parliament House, The National Portrait Gallery, and The Royal Australian Mint.
Questacon’s Innovations Program team were delighted to participate in the week of virtual excursions. The crew was headed by Captain Ace (Anneli Cole), with the Ground Control crew (Leisha Duncan and Andrew Oliver) at the ready to support the Captain with remote producing software and interactive polls.
Captain Ace prepared the cabin for take-off by introducing the participants to the important parts of a passenger plane, and helped boil down the physics of flight to four fundamental forces – Lift, Gravity, Thrust and Drag. Over the hour, thousands of budding young aerospace engineers were encouraged to creatively test and modify various paper plane designs.
The session was an overwhelming success, with 13,000 end-points connecting our keen passengers to virtually embark on the flight – that’s enough people to fill over 35 Boeing 747 jumbo jets!
Due to popular demand, Questacon’s live, webinar-style Virtual Excursions will be continuing throughout Term 3 2021. The webinars are suitable for students working from home, or for whole classes at school.
Do you want to take flight with Questacon from the comfort of your own home? Check out future webinars as part of Questacon’s Virtual Excursions offerings.
