My Paper Airplane Project rlw

Paper Plane Project

(Combined Comms and Application of Number)

Ryan L. Williams

In my project I…

• Will build two paper airplanes.• With finished results I will measure and

work out:– Mean– Range– Mode– Median

• I looked at: – Aspect Ratio– Wing Span– Lift Drag Ratio

Video

Measuring Distance

– I built two paper airplanes. – I threw both 5 times, to measure the distance. – The first paper airplane:

• The last throw of the first paper airplane was not too good.

• This was because creases started to get in my paper airplane.

• The paper went straight down and crashed into the floor.

• This give me a poor distance.

– The second paper airplane which I built:• First throw was flying fine.• Last two attempts for this paper airplane were awful.

Measuring Distance

Averages

• The Mean:– I worked out this by

throwing the paper airplane five times.

– Then measure how far it went in the room (in centimetres).

– The calculation in Excel which I've worked out is “=AVERAGE(B3:B7)”.

– My final results for the mean were: 349.2 cm.

– I had to add all my calculations up, then divided them by how many times I threw them.

• The Median:– The median is the

number in the middle.– The calculation in Excel

which I’ve worked out for median is “=MEDIAN(B3:B7)”.

– My final results for the median were 367 cm.

– This is a bit higher than the mean because the last throw drag the mean right down.

Aspect Ratio

• This is to do with the shape of the wing. • It shows how far and fast it could travel and how

far it could glide.• High aspect ratio planes are usually slow but all

good gliders.• Low aspect ratio planes are usually fast but not so

good at gilding. • The Aspect Ratio of my two paper airplanes were:

– First one – 1.0 – Second one – 0.8

• I worked it out by dividing wing span by the wing chord.

Aspect Ratio

• Final results with the paper airplanes.

• The first airplane to your left is called Rapier.

• The second airplane to your right is called Floating.

• As you can see to your right has a higher aspect ratio.

Checked work

• I checked by– I looked at the aspect ratio I

worked out for the Rapier and I could see it was wrong because my answer was higher than the aspect ratio for the Floating plane.

– This couldn’t be right because you can see by looking at the shape that the Floating is an higher aspect ratio than the other one.

– I had divided the chord by wing span instead of wing span by chord.

– When measuring the distance I checked by I used the right units on the tape by walking and counting because one pace is equal to 1 metre.

• Errors I fixed were– Changed the decimal

place into one in Excel. – I also by mistake in the

PowerPoint compared the median of the Rapier with the mean for the Floating.

– I spotted that this couldn't be right because they were so different that I went back to the Excel document and looked again.

– Spotting that the distance marker had been kicked out of place. (spotted by pacing).

Rounding

• I measured to the nearest:– Centimetre for distance– Tenth of a second for time– Millimetres for wing span and wing

chord

• When working out I worked to the nearest:– One decimal place

The sites we used

• http://www.paperairplanes.co.uk - Got the instructions on this website, to build my two paper airplanes. (with good instructions)

• http://www.google.co.uk – For letting me using their search engine. (and using the “define:” function on their website.

Tips for best performance

• DON’T RUSH!!!• Use a ruler or FLATTEN the creases in the

paper airplane.• If it shoots up in the air:

– check if the wing if folded up towards the back– or put weight on the front

• If it shoots down:– pull the flaps up– weight on the plane