Ideas for a School Project - Electric Free Flight Foam / Balsa Profile Model

[free_flight_fan]

I work as an Assistant Teacher in a School and have been doodling some ideas for some scale profile model slot together airplanes, similar to the little foam chuck gliders with the blue prop on the front that I had as a kid.

I've always been interested in model aircraft but never got into R/C or any further past the initial balsa glider stage.

I've got an idea for a project which could be run as a one-off workshop or a lunchtime club to introduce the school kids to CAD and using the departments Lasercutter.

I'd like to create a small outline slot together kit which would be powered by a small pager style motor, ideally with a timer or even one of those super capacitors for the power supply for a short runtime.

I've seen the pager motors which can be used as a power supply for paper planes which look fun but would like something which would have a bit more creative possibilities in terms of developing a cnc cut model.

Can anyone recommend a design / plan and suitable motor, battery, and prop for such a project.

I'd like to keep the aircraft small so that the parts can be cutout on the bed of our A3 lasercutter, from thin sheet balsa or depron foam.

I've built a couple of the guillows kits, and although the prospect of a scale full fuselage slot together balsa kit would be exciting I think it would be great to have a small outline model, this could easily be adapted, with the students deigning their own fuselage outlines etc to develop the idea. Since it's a project for a school, cost would have to be as low as possible!