One really wonderful thing about my kids is that they keep me hopping. My 7 year old son recently became fascinated with boomerangs. He has made several out of paper. He uses several layers of paper with either glue or tape as his adhesive. His designs are improving with each model. Some have arched back toward him, but never made it back to his hand.

Today, he said he wanted to start making them out of wood. My husband, who is in the mood to do some wood work, wanted to use wood from around the house. He wanted to know which angle the wood needed to be and if there were any patterns available. So, I decided I better research it.

Materials:

According to my research, it is recommended that airplane birch plywood from Finland be used because it is especially durable- think about what the boomerang will be hitting and at what speeds. That makes sense. However, before you go out and buy some of this special wood, you might want to know that it runs in excess of $100 US dollars for a five foot by five foot sheet. OUCH!

So, I don't have that kind of money to support the experiment this way. I decided to look for other ideas. I found a site that explains step by step how to make one out of cardboard. Not just any kind of cardboard, but cereal box cardboard. I think I'm looking at the extremes- too expensive, but durable vs cheap, but flimsy. Maybe the cereal box version could be used as a prototype to a better, wooden model?

There must be a happy medium!

I found one site that recommended 1/4th inch birch plywood and it wasn't from overseas. I found several stencils online. Some are V shaped with a 107 degree angled curve, but there are many other shapes to experiment with. You'll also need a band saw and some sandpaper. We don't have a band saw, so we're going to use our jig saw and/or table saw. If you'd like to decorate it, you may want spray paint.

Procedure:

1. Find the stencil online that you prefer and print it out.
2. Cut out the stencil and trace it onto the plywood.
3. Put on safety goggles.
4. Cut wood on the band saw following the pattern drawn- children should not do this. If you allow your child to watch, make sure they have goggles, too. Take your time to cut it out smoothly.
5. Sand the boomerang edges until smooth.
6. The surface of the boomerang should be sanded so that it slopes like you see in the picture.
7. Practice throwing it to see how it works. You may want to sand some more to get the curving just right
8. Decorate and/or paint, if desired, but only after the sanding is how you want it.

Conclusion:

Doing experiments with kids is a lot of fun, especially if you can find a way to avoid spending an arm and a leg doing it. Make sure that your child leads the way during the experiment and chooses a project based on their own interests. Be prepared to do the same experiment multiple times since kids will want to find out if there is a better way to do it.