The Pima Air & Space Museum wanted to inspire kids about the science of flight and attract more visitors to the museum. So we built a 45’ giant paper airplane, lifted it into the sky and let it fly. As part of the program, we held a paper airplane contest for kids. A 12-year old boy won, and he got to help design, and name the plane, have one-on-one educational sessions with the projects lead engineer, and got to attend the private launch. The paper plane took flight. The press and social networks jumped all over it. Afterwards, the museum displayed the plane as a permanent exhibit in the museum, complete a video, a feature on the history of paper aviation, and the contestants and winner's paper airplanes on display. Now, the people at PASM can say they’re doing more than just collecting history. They’re making it.

Within three weeks of launching our historic 45' plane, we were able to achieve over 123m media impressions, including 225 unique news outlets and our story was picked up in 9 different countries.

In one month we garnered 53,310 unique website visitors – the site has consistently averaged at 1,500 uniques and the teaser video got over 861,000 views. Our real success, however, was felt when we were picked up by a children's blogcalled DOGO news. Kids continue to read and comment such as "i wish i could make one. i mean that is just so super cool!" – rnstata.

Sent lesson plan packets to schools regarding the science of flight and information on the Paper Airplane contest at PASM Wild postings of our Paper Airplane contest poster around town in the Tucson, AZ areaCreated an early exhibit at the museum to help tell the history of paper airplanesRan online banners on tourist and news' sites that drove traffic to our campaign's microsite Utilised PASM's existing opt-in email database to message their loyalists Wrote press releases and pitches to press about our 45' plane, which resulted in news coverage locally, nationally and globallyCreated a seeded video recapping the outcome of the flight.