It's unique that a child can build a model of something, then walk a few feet from the classroom and be able to see the life-sized version of the model.
Every first Saturday of the month at the Pima Air & Space Museum, that's exactly what children ages 5 years old and up are able to do.
In a classroom in the Dorothy H. Finley Space Gallery, members of the Sonoran Desert Model Builders work with Mina Stafford, the museum's education program manager, and her staff to help children and their parents build Snap Tite models.
"Both of these airplanes actually exist here at the museum," Charles Wacker, a Sonoran Desert Model Builders volunteer, said of the models the children were working on Saturday at the museum, 6000 E. Valencia Road.
"So they can go have their picture taken with it."
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Go to www.pimaair.org for more information about the museum, and http://sdmb.yolasite.com for more about Sonoran Desert Model Builders.
Kids: Fold, Fly a paper plane
The Pima Air & Space Museum, at 6000 E. Valencia Road, hosts special events year-round. This Saturday kids can compete in a paper-airplane folding and flying contest, but to compete they need to pre-register by noon Friday.
Kids ages 6 through 14 can sign up for the free competition at www.GreatPaperAirplane.org
Some walk-in registrants will be allowed in, if space is available, until 11 a.m. the day of the event, when the competition will start.
The contestant and up to four members of his/her family get free admission to the museum. Contestants can create their airplanes in advance, but materials will be available at the museum to build planes, too.
Ken Blackburn, who holds the Guinness World Record for the longest paper airplane flight (27.6 seconds), will be at the museum before the competition, from 10 to 11 a.m., offering folding and flying help. Go to www.paperplane.org to check out some of his tips.
The young flier whose paper plane flies the farthest in the Great Paper Airplane Fly Off at the museum Saturday will win a spot as guest engineer on a team challenging the Guinness Book of World Records' largest-paper-airplane honors, according to a press release.
The team is building a giant paper airplane that will bear the youth guest engineer's name on the tail or nose. The idea is to fly the plane in February from 5,000 feet over the Arizona desert.
The flight will be filmed; details of the event are still being worked out.
Tim W. Glass is a Tucson freelance photographer.
