rachel downs, makayla ianuzzi, james o’donnell, and sara sohmer

Rachel Downs, Makayla Ianuzzi, James O’Donnell, and Sara

Sohmer

We did this the day of the video conference. This is a picture of our group pulling together ideas for the construction.

We researched over the entire course of the project.

When something didn’t work, we always went back to the internet.

A good, stable foundation of knowledge provided a good starting point for analyzing and inventing.

Air molecules are in rows, and they must stay in those rows.

Air is a fluid, so it will cling onto the glider as long as it can.

If a surface is curved on top and flat on the bottom, the molecules on

top must travel faster than the ones on the bottom. The principle states that the faster the molecules travel, the less pressure there will be.

When the pressure is lower on top than the bottom, the higher pressure on the bottom will push the aircraft upward.

A good example of this is when you blow on top of the piece of

paper, the paper lifts up to the level of your mouth. This principal is important for our glider because we need to overcome lift and drag.

The most important thing to remember when designing the parts of the glider is the aerodynamics of them.

The aerodynamics are important for two reasons.

The first is that our glider can’t have a lot of drag.

The second is that we need to consider Bernoulli’s principal so that our glider can overcome both weight and drag.

We also need to have the least amount mass on our glider to decrease the weight pulling our glider down.

To do this, we didn’t add a lot of extra stuff to our glider.

We even tried not to use too much glue or tape.

We chose the lightest shoebox we had.

To find the glide slope ratio, we divided the distance our glider traveled by the height from which we dropped it.

There are many factors that go into this like how hard we throw it and the design of the aircraft.

This ratio is very similar to the glide to slope ratio.

To be precise, how we calculate it is similar to the previous ratio, but what it shows is different.

This ratio shows how the glider overcomes the drag rather than how far it can travel.

The aspect ratio shows the size of the wing.

The higher the aspect ratio is, the better the glide to slope ratio will be.

This means that the glider will travel more horizontally than vertically.

The reason for this is that is will cause less drag.

To get the aspect ratio, you divide the length of the wing by the width.

Weight is a force caused by the gravitational attraction of the earth.

The gravity depends on the mass of all of the parts of the glider.

The weight must be distributed evenly.

Drag is the force that resists motion. A thin and small frame would create

the least amount of drag. The thrust of the aircraft must

overcome the drag. Better aerodynamics will decrease

drag.

Lift is a mechanical force generated by a solid object moving through a fluid.

If there is no fluid, there is no lift. The aircraft must also have motion to

generate lift. The higher the speed, the lower the

pressure, and that means that there is less pressure.

The aircraft must have good aerodynamics for lift.

The design of the glider determines the speed of the fluid rushing past the it.

The only thrust that will be applied to the glider will be before it is in flight.

To increase the thrust acting on the glider, we could possibly run with it before letting it go.

There is a formula that is needed to calculate the exact thrust needed.

The formula is Ft=m∆v

We thought about our research and decided to create a prototype to check our ideas.

When we were analyzing our research we also began brainstorming again to plan our design.

Planning our design became difficult at times because we had to consider every piece of research we collected.

We chose to have curved wings so it would have more aerodynamics.

The tail was made to stabilize the glider.

Also, the nose was created to give the plane increased aerodynamics and to create less surface area.

This is a picture of our blueprints

These are the results of the prototype: Throw 1: Distance- 310cm Height-

119cm Throw 2: Distance- 526cm Height- 119cm Throw 3: Distance- 201cm Height- 119cm The glide slope ratios: 2.6cm:1cm, 4.4cm:1cm, and 1.7cm:1cm

The aspect ratio: 1.3cm:1cm The lift to drag ratios: 2.6, 4.4, and 1.7 The aspect ratio was too low for a

successful flight

These are the results of our real glider: Throw 1: Distance- 305cm Height-127cm Throw 2: Distance- 343cm Height-127cm Throw 3: Distance- 290cm Height-127cm The glide slope ratios: 2.4cm:1cm,

2.7cm:1cm, and 2.3cm:1cm The aspect ratio: 2.72:1cm The lift to drag ratios: 2.4, 2.7, and 2.3 Our ratios were much better.

Our second glider model worked much better than our prototype glider.

There are many reasons for this because we did a lot of research after we created the prototype.

The wings on our first glider were not nearly as big as the second glider’s.

The second glider’s shoebox was much smaller than the first as well.

http://science.howstuffworks.com/transport/flight/modern/glider3.htm

http://piperpages.wikispaces.com/NASA+Challenge

http://www.grc.nasa.gov/WWW/k-12/airplane/ldrat.html

http://wright.nasa.gov/airplane/geom.html

http://www.mschaad.ch/mathematicians/bernoulli2.jpg

http://www.skyhighhobby.com/tag/aspect-ratio

http://www.galacticbinder.com/paristotle-newton-and-r2-d2.html

http://strongphysics.wikispaces.com/ch2_jnlr

http://wright.nasa.gov/airplane/lift1.html

http://www.grc.nasa.gov/WWW/k-12/VirtualAero/BottleRocket/airplane/thrust1.html

http://takebackthesky.com/cc.php