What exactly is the air speed of an unladen swallow?

That’s one question that will be asked Saturday when five current and former Rowan University students attempt to fly a giant swallow carrying a coconut during their first Redbull Flugtag adventure.

The Redbull Flugtag challenges teams to send human-powered flying machines off a 30-foot deck over the Delaware River in hopes of gaining flight.

The five friends — Brook Golden, Lewis Bivona, John Beehler, Max Heitman and Joe Conboy — decided to embark on the adventure after attending the last Flugtag event as spectators.

But they had trouble coming up with an original theme.

“We felt that everything we had thought about had already been done,” Bivona said. “So we popped in our favorite movie, which is, of course, ‘Monty Python and the Holy Grail.’ ”

Which is where the idea for a giant swallow with a coconut was born.

Then they had the problem of funding their project which, with its size and necessary materials, could be an enormous undertaking — until Bivona, the president of Rowan’s Environmental Club, came up with the idea to use materials that others were throwing away, essentially up-cycling garbage.

“In terms of a recycled craft, we wanted to show it was possible to be responsible without being boring,” Bivona said.

“We didn’t really want it to be green-themed, but you can do something environmentally friendly that doesn’t necessarily need a green theme,” Golden added.

And then the search began.

Wooden pallets were found in North Jersey and transported to Heitman’s house in Mantua, the hub of construction activity. From there they had to find a replacement for PVC pipe, which would have been the easiest material to fulfill their design.

“We’re trying to do this in the responsible way, so we had to replace PVC which is highly toxic,” Bivona said. “One of Max’s neighbors had a backyard full of bamboo. It’s just this miracle.”

So the bamboo was cut — but not with a herring, ala Monty Python — and the team used the wood as the base of the swallow.

“It actually turned out better than PVC,” Bivona said proudly.

However, one key component to their craft wasn’t “up-cyclable” — the wheels. After multiple attempts with various collected wheels, they ended up making a trip to the local hardware store.

“You’d be surprised how hard it is convert old bike wheels. We weren’t brilliant enough mechanics, so we had to go the Home Depot route,” Bivona said.

On Saturday, the team — with Golden atop the swallow — will be joining multiple other groups in launching their flying machine off a dock in a competition that aims to get the crafts to fly as far as possible before plummeting into the Delaware.

Golden is excited for her trip, despite the fears of her family.

“If there’s any way I can jump off a giant dock into the Delaware River and it’s legal, I’m into it,” she said. “Maybe we’re all just crazy. My aunt really thinks I’m going to die. But I don’t think anything will go wrong.”

And if anything does happen, hopefully “it’ll be just a flesh wound,” she said.

Contact Rebecca Forand at rforand@southjerseymedia.com.