stephs+group

Stephanie, Nick, Dragomir

Goal: How do changes in mass affect the air resistance of a falling toy paratrooper.

Procedure:
 * 1) Set up toy paratrooper attatched to parachute
 * 2) Weigh paratroopers, make sure they're all the same mass
 * 3) Measure the height of the drop.
 * 4) Drop from measured height and record time.
 * 5) Add on weight to each paratrooper
 * 6) Repeat steps 2 & 4
 * 7) Add on additional weight
 * 8) Repeat steps 2 & 4







Conclusion:

The more mass that is added to an object, the less air resistance there is applied on the object. We know this because when each of us dropped a 4g paratrooper 3 times, the average times for the paratrooper to fall 3.5 meters were 2.77s for Nick, 2.04s for Stephanie, 2.12s for Dragomir, and when we added mass to make them 7 grams the average times went down to 2.13s for Nick, 2.29s for Stephanie, 1.22s for Dragomir. Since we know that air resistance pushes in the opposite direction of motion, that means that it should cause the paratroopers to fall slower. Since they fell faster when we added mass to the paratroopers, we can conclude that the added mass resulted in less air resistance.

Sources of Error:

Throughout the experiment, there have been several factors of error that affected our data. Everybody's parachute was designed in a different manner, so this could have contributed to the varied performance. For instance, the strings on Dragomir's parachute were tied further from the edge, decreasing its air resistance and making it fall quicker. Also, Dragomir's parachute strings often had to be adjusted, further altering his parachute's performance. The parachutes' drops may have also been affected by the placement of the men on the ends of the parachute strings and how much tape was used to secure said men.