How Do You Make A Jumping Paper Clip?
You can create enough tension in a paper clip to launch it quite a distance when it falls on its side. But it can be tricky to bend it so that it “pops” all that tension in a single moment. Here’s a detailed description so you can make that paper clip fly. • Unfold Unfold the outermost side of the paper clip to form a 45 degree angle. • Triangle shape Unfold the opposite side of the paper clip to 45 degrees in relation to the longest side, to form a triangle. • Parallel Unfold the last (shortest) side so that it is parallel to the adjacent side of the triangle. • Create tension Bend the parallel sides away from each other. This is how you create the tension necessary to launch the paper clip. • Lock together Yellow arrows show which way the ends are pushing (against each other) Carefully bring them back together without “unbending” any of the tension you created in the previous step. Overlap them so that they are leaning against each other, held together by the tension. They should be
