What a Drag!
Through this activity, students learn how drag affects falling objects. Guided by a worksheet, student teams make a variety of paper shapes (cones, boxes) and experiment to see how size, shape and weight affect the speed with which their paper shapes fall. They collect free-fall timing data and examine the collective class data to draw conclusions about which shapes had less drag as well as the relationship between mass and time (none).
Drag acts upwards on falling objects.Copyright NASA http://www.nasa.gov/images/content/471976main_jsc2010e110906_lo.jpg
Engineers streamline vehicles and aircraft so the force of drag is reduced. To determine the most streamlined shapes, they perform experiments to measure the amount of drag on those shapes. Usually, engineers use pointed and rounded shapes to minimize drag and maximize vehicle and aircraft efficiency.
After this activity, students should be able to:
- Explain how geometric shape and size affect the amount of form drag on an object through measurement and analysis.
- Predict the relative form drag on any given object based on their observations of the object's size and shape.
- Generate conclusions based on experimental data