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Building an Amazing Airplane

Follow these directions to create a thin, sleek paper airplane.

To begin, you will need a normal, full sheet of paper. These pages measure 8.5 inches by 11 inches. You will need to start with your paper in “portrait” position. This phrase means putting the paper on the table so that one of the short sides faces you. Now you are ready to start folding the best paper airplane!

First, grab the upper left-hand corner of the paper and fold it diagonally toward the far long side. Fold it firmly as soon as the short top edge is on top of the long right side. Your paper will now look like a triangle on top of a rectangle.

Then, take the upper right corner and fold it down toward the lower left corner. It will reach to the bottom of the triangle. Press it firmly when upper right corner touches the left-hand side. Now you will have a triangle on top of a rectangle. But, now the triangle has the longest side touching the top of the rectangle.

Now, you will fold the paper in half so that the left and right sides touch each other. After you firmly fold the paper, open it back up so you can see the crease line. The next two folds are a bit tricky so read carefully!

Put your paper on the table so the long rectangle is at the bottom. Then, grab the corner where the top triangle connects to the right side of the rectangle. Fold it toward the middle so the outside edge lines up perfectly with the crease.

Now, you will do the same thing with the left side. Grab the paper where the top triangle intersects the left side of the bottom rectangle. Fold this point until it matches exactly on to the crease.

Fold your plane in half again along the crease. Take a few seconds to push firmly on each fold so that your plane is as thin as possible.

Finally, we will make the wings! Put the crease on the bottom and grab the top of one of the sides. Fold it outward so the top of the side lines up with the crease. Do the exact same thing with the other side. Grab the top of the plane and fold it away from the wing you just made. Fold it until the long edge is on top of the crease and then press firmly.

You may need to pull the wings up a bit so they form right angles with the body of the plane.


This description was purposefully hard because there were no pictures, just words. Great work making it to the end! If you want to make it easier for others, you can share pictures of your process by uploading them here.

Share your plane pictures here.

Adjective hunt! Write down all the adjectives you see in the last six paragraphs.

Follow these directions to create a thin, sleek paper airplane.

To begin, you will need a normal, full sheet of paper. These pages measure 8.5 inches by 11 inches. You will need to start with your paper in “portrait” position. This phrase means putting the paper on the table so that one of the short sides faces you. Now you are ready to start folding the best paper airplane!

First, grab the upper left-hand corner of the paper and fold it diagonally toward the far side. Fold it firmly as soon as the short top edge is on top of the long right side. Your paper will now look like a triangle on top of a rectangle.

Then, take the upper right corner and fold it down toward the lower left corner. Press it firmly when upper right corner touches the left-hand side. Now you will have a triangle on top of a rectangle. But, now the triangle has the longest side touching the top of the rectangle.

Now, you will fold the paper in half so that the left and right sides touch each other. After you firmly fold the paper, open it back up so you can see the crease line. The next two folds are a bit tricky so read carefully!

Grab the corner where the top triangle connects to the right side of the rectangle. Fold it inward so it lines up perfectly with the crease. Now, you will do the same thing with the left side. Grab the paper where the top triangle intersects the left side of the bottom rectangle. Fold this point until it matches exactly on to the crease.

Fold your plane in half again along the crease. Take a few seconds to push firmly on each fold so that your plane is as thin as possible.

Finally, we will make the wings! Put the crease on the bottom and grab the top of one of the sides. Fold it outward so the top of the side lines up with the crease. Do the exact same thing with the other side. Grab the top of the plane and fold it away from the wing you just made. Fold it until the long edge is on top of the crease and then press firmly.

You may need to pull the wings up a bit so they form right angles with the body of the plane.

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Sharing a love of calculus

Calculus not only helps you stand out when considering colleges, it’s a key skill used by many of the engineers we work with every day! Consider what your goal is for this year’s calculus class. Do you want a 4.0? Earn a specific AP score? Learn why Leibniz and Newton needed this math to unlock the universe?

We will work with your goal and the key concepts in calculus to tailor a personalized learning plan that not only is interesting, but will help make this math stick.

You may ask, why do you care? This company, edMe Learning, is all about combining face-to-face teaching with personally tailored online learning experiences. My name is Mike, and I work around the clock to make this dream a reality. I need your help to figure out the most difficult parts of calculus and the different ways to solve these problems. We will learn from each other and ensure that you meet your goals.

Overview of this page:

  1. Interactive Unit Circle: Great for the concepts of sin, cos, and tan.
  2. Cumulative derivative/integral grapher: Use self-talk to master this concept! Derivatives are rate of change at that point. Integrals show the total area at the curve.
  3. Communication tools: Always available, ready to help with sticky issues!

Unit Circle

This easy to use widget is best used by first clicking “Special Angles”. Use it to see how the values change together.

Derivative and Integral Grapher

This simulator starts with derivatives only. You can drag f(x) around to make the graph many different shapes. The derivative (the df/dx graph) shows the slope at every value of x.

Click “Integral” and you will immediately see the total area under the curve. If you drag f(x) below 0, you will see that the value of the integral decreases. Look at the end of the graph; it’s flat because f(x) is 0 so no area is being added to the cumulative total.

The best way to explore this topic is think of what does NOT make sense. Write down your questions and we can discuss them face-to-face or you can submit them below.

(If the Flash in this simulator is too archaic, you can try the original simulator here.)

This widget shows the derivative relationship as you change the constants for the two terms.