helicopter experiment

The Helicopter Experiment

Introduction/Background:

The Helicopter Experiment! The goal is to find find out how increasing the paperhelicopter’s paper helicopter’s weight with paper clips will will affect how the helicopter falls. The helicopter has blades that  produce air-resistance when falling down. If there are paperclips attached to the helicopter, the helicopter will fall down with more speed. According to researches, gravity is an invisible force that pulls objects towar ds the center of Earth. Gravity is the main reason why everyone and everything sticks sticks to Earth. When an object is falling, gravity gravity is pulling the object causing the object to build more speed. A movement that reduces the gravity is air-resistance. Air-resistance is air building friction causing things to slow down as they fall towards the ground. ground. On Earth, there is atmosphere atmosphere which is why there is air- resistance. resistance. On the moon, there is no atmosphere which is why there is no airresistance. That means if there were two objects falling at the same time on the moon; the objects would land at the same time. Research Question:

How will increasing the helicopter’s weigh (mass) by adding paperclip affect how the helicopter falls? Hypothesis:

If more paperclips are added, then the helicopter will drop faster because the increased weight will make the helicopter spin in a way that reduces air-resistance. Materials:        

Paper Helicopter Template 3 paper clips 1 Scissor 1 Stopwatch Chair Pencil Chart that describes the speed of the helicopter Calculator (to find the average)

Procedure:

1. Take the paper helicopter template. With the scissor cut along the dotted lines. 2. Fold the part labeled A behind the part labeled B 3. Fold part C behind part B

4. Fold part D up behind part B 5. Complete your helicopter by folding blade X down in one direction and blade Y down in the opposite direction. It should look like the helicopter (right)

Observation/Data: Trial

1 2 3 4 5 Average Time

Time for 0 paper clips (seconds) 2.01 2.84 2.38 2.36 2.36

Time for 1 paper clip (seconds) 1.38 1.40 1.27 1.11 1.27

Time for 2 paper clips (seconds) 0.75 0.75 0.71 0.64 0.63

1.918

1.286

0.69

Time for 3 paper clips (seconds) 0.57 0.53 0.55 0.56 0.50 0.542

(in seconds)

Data Analysis

Judging on the results, the average time the helicopter lands on the floor decreased as more paper clips were added. The pattern was that as more paperclips were added onto the helicopter, the speed of the helicopter feel fast. The data supported the hypothesis. The hypothesis states that if there are more paperclips on the helicopter, the helicopter would drop faster because it has more force and less airresistance. In the results, as more paperclips were added, the average time decreased. That means the speed of the helicopter increased. Conclusion

This experiment was to test how increasing an object’s weight will affect the speed of the object when dropped. A discovery made was that when falling, if there is more weight/mass on the object, there is less air-resistance but more force/speed. Therefore the data supported the hypothesis. One Independent Variable that could have affected the experiment was the positioning and the increasing of the paperclips. The Dependent Variable would be that the paperclips were  positioned in another way; it could have affected the speed of the helicopter. Also, another D.V. would be if there are more paperclips added the speed would also change. A Constant Variable would be that the height of the chair (where the helicopter was dropped) could have affected the results. The reason is because if the chair is short, the helicopter would have a quicker time on landing to the ground. Meaning, the time of the helicopter would shorten than experiments that included a higher chair. A new research question based on what was discovered would be how

to make an object land at a different time when it is dropped at the same time with another object when the atmosphere is alike to the moon.