Helicopters Science Olympiad 2017-18 || Over 3 Minutes!

We found that rubber makes all the difference. Our final helicopter gets 2 minutes 18 seconds with 30 cm rubber but over 3 minutes with 32 cm rubber. We also found that weight is extremely important. A tenth of a gram translates to almost 10 seconds of flight. We tried many different things including laser-cutting custom ribs to create a more ideal airfoil. We tried to minimize drag with this design, but we ended up reducing lift too much so it just ended up spinning very quickly. This was definitely something we would have experimented with more had we made it to nationals. My partner, Prakash Sekar, and I are on Ward Melville Science Olympiad.