This reconstruction relay – part of KQ3, Why did the Wright Brothers succeed where others had failed – is fantastic fun as well as helping pupils to look carefully at the features of The Flyer, the Wright Brothers 1903 plane.
Basically pupils are cast in the role of spies working for a rival company who want to find out what the Wright Brothers are up to. They have heard that the brothers are building a plane in a special shed. No one has seen the plane before. If the spies are clever they can avoid the guards who are patrolling outside. So they must be quick. Fortunately, there is a large hole where a knot of wood has worked loose. This provides the spy hole through which they can find the details. Their task is to work together to draw a plan of the Flyer so it can be copied by the rival company’s engineers.
So how does it work?
Show slides 2 and 3 of the PowerPoint to set the scene and arouse interest. Slide 2 shows the shed where the Wright Brothers were building the Flyer in 1903. Slides 3 and 4 then give them the idea of
