Boomerang Experiment

Three pieces of cardboard, three lolly sticks, three blobs of Blutack, and a deft flick of the wrist. That’s all you need to make your own boomerang. What else do you want? Hilariously bad accents, that’s what.

What you need

  1. A biggish blob of BluTack or similar.
  2. Three lolly sticks, or craft lolly sticks.
  3. Three pieces of thin card about 8cm x 4.5cm

What you do

1. Place a small blob of BluTack at the end of each stick, Stick A, Stick B and Stick C.

2. With the blob of BluTack on Stick A facing down, attach the tip of stick B (also facing down) to the Stick A, just over a quarter of the way down the stick. These sticks start to form two sides of a triangle.

3. Add Stick C to Stick B in exactly the same way. Then finally take the tip of A and attach it a quarter of the way down on top of C so the three sticks are woven together and make a small triangle between them.

4. Attach the oblongs of card to the ends of the sticks, with the sticks in the middle of each card and the long sides along the sticks.

5. Hold the boomerang nearly vertically and throw with a flick of the wrist to get the boomerang spinning!

What's going on

Each card has a certain amount of lift as it slices through the air, rather like a paper aeroplane. The amount of lift each card receives depends on the speed of air flowing over it. Because the boomerang is spinning, the top card is going forward through the air while the lower cards are going backwards, giving the cards an uneven lift. This difference in lift, combined with the different angle of the cards changes the direction of the boomerang.

With the right amount of twist and a semi-professional throw the boomerang will return.

Special Safety Advice

No special advice