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A documented Central Washington University project combined paper loading, folding and launching in one machine. Its 2016 project abstract reports a fold-and-launch cycle of under two minutes and a launch distance of 10 meters. Those are claims about that project—not verified specifications for the unidentified machine in the title, or results supported by a published test protocol.
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Which machine is this?
The title does not identify a maker, model or video, so the machine shown cannot be confirmed from the available documentation. A useful documented example is Hassan A. Bujayli’s Central Washington University undergraduate project, completed in Spring 2016. It was developed in response to an ASME design challenge: make an airplane from one sheet of paper and launch it. The university repository describes the project on its project page.
The design is one engineering approach, not a standard blueprint for paper-airplane machines. Its abstract describes three stages: loading the sheet, folding it, and launching the finished plane.
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How does the machine fold and launch the plane?
Loading and folding
The project abstract reports four 15 RPM motors for loading and folding the paper, with two linear actuators in the folding mechanism. It describes the power source as 12-volt batteries. The source does not specify the paper’s dimensions, weight or brand; “standard sheet” is the extent of its description.
Launching
Two 15,000 RPM motors power the launcher, according to the abstract. These motor and battery details belong to Bujayli’s design only; they are not universal requirements for a machine that folds or launches a paper airplane.
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How long does it take, and how far can it launch?
Bujayli’s abstract says the machine could fold a standard sheet into an airplane and launch it within two minutes, and reports a launch distance of 10 meters. The abstract gives no test protocol or independent validation, so these figures should be read as the project’s reported results, not a guarantee for every run or a benchmark for other machines.
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A 2015 Washington University in St. Louis engineering report frames a related paper-projectile challenge around three evaluation criteria: distance traveled, how straight the projectile flies, and the device’s packed volume. These criteria help reveal trade-offs: a design optimized for range may not be the most compact, while a long flight alone says little about trajectory. The repository page identifies the criteria but does not provide comparative performance results. Read the project record.
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Automated folding has also been studied separately from launching. Devin Balkcom’s 2004 Carnegie Mellon thesis, Robotic Origami Folding, concerns an origami-folding robot that could make a paper airplane; its airplane task was described as more difficult than folding a paper hat. That is a different machine and task, so its results should not be used to estimate the Central Washington launcher’s reliability. See the thesis record.
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