Recycled Bi Plane

Supplies

Paper towel tube
Cereal box or some cardboard
Regular masking tape
Blue tape (to customize it)
6 bendy straws
1 small paper cup

Instructions

Cutting the wings!

Start out by cutting out your front wings, tail wing, and tail from a piece of cereal box or cardboard. This is a Biplane, so you are going to need two main wings. I played around with their size and shape by drawing them out onto my scrap cardboard before I cut them out. You could get real creative at this point and make your Biplane wings look like bird wings or dragon wings!

Cut out your supports!

Because it is a Biplane. you are going to want to add some kind of support structure between the two front main wings that will keep them apart but attached to each other at the same time.

WING SRUTS.
I simply cut out four rectangles that were all the same size, about 1.5 inches by 3.5 inches in size. I then trimmed the sides a bit to make them look cool.

Collect your propeller and motor assembly parts!
To make my propeller and motor assembly, I punched six holes on the side, near the bottom of my paper cup. I also carefully made a small hole in the center of the bottom of my cup that was slightly bigger than a straw.

Insert your straws!
Now simply insert your bendy straws into the holes on the side and trim them as you like. These are the exhaust pipes for your motor. You may need to tape them in place if they don't hold firm on their own. If you're going to color or cover all of your pieces in tape to customize your Biplane, you should do that part first.

Make your propeller shaft!
For my propeller shaft, I took a small piece of leftover straw, wrapped some tape around one end, and inserted it up through the hole on the bottom of my cup. I then added a little tape to hold it in place.

Add your propeller!
My propeller was cut out of an old cereal box. I drew out a design that I liked, cut it out and punched a hole in the center of it. Make sure your hole is bigger than your straw propeller shaft. Now drop your propeller on and see if it spins!

Connect your motor!
All that's left is to wrap some tape around the straw that makes up your propeller shaft. Make sure to add the tape away from the propeller a little bit so that it can spin. Now plop it on the front of your Biplane and, well, it looks like a propeller and motor assembly to me!
Cover the parts with tape!
At this point, you could tape all of your parts together and start playing with your Biplane! What I did was to cover all of my parts with tape before I assembled my Biplane. I added blue masking tape on the engine assembly and wing struts, along with a strip on the wing flap ends. Looks pretty cool!

Tape the fuselage onto the main wing!
Next I taped the fuselage or main body onto my bottom wing. I then carefully taped all four wing struts in place. I played around a little with their location, and liked the look of two struts sandwiched next to the fuselage, and the other two placed near the ends of the wings. I also installed my motor assembly at this point and decided to add a cockpit hole onto the fuselage. I penciled it in first, making it the size and shape I liked, cut it out, and finally added a little blue tape around the hole to make it look nice.

Connect your tail!
For the tail section, you will want to first tape your tail to the tail wing.
Then carefully mark and cut three slots out for your tail assembly to slide into on the fuselage of your Biplane. I was very careful with cutting the top slit so that my tail would stick up vertically through it, and that the slots I cut were not so big that my assembly would slide around once I inserted them. Your tail assembly should fit inside your slots nice and snug.

 Add details!
I added a few more details, such as some decals that I made by drawing a circle onto some masking tape. I then colored a "#1" onto it and accented it with red and yellow markers, and finally cut them out and taped them onto the tail and top wing. I also added some wheels onto my Biplane. Maybe you could add some pontoons for landing on water instead. If you'd like to see how to make pontoons, check out this project!

 Have fun!
As with most projects I build, there is never really a "finished" point. I could keep adding and adding smaller details to it, and so can you! At some point I stand back, look at it and say "COOL! It's done!" Other times, I'll come back and look at it, and think of something else to do to it. No matter the case, always remember to have fun, experiment, and try to use different materials and ways of putting it together!