Helicopter Lab

Group #4Period 2

September 23, 2010

Purpose

• To engineer the longest flying helicopter by applying the steps of the scientific method to

evaluate different designs.

Materials and Procedure

• Materials: Helicopter Template, Scissors, Paper, Paper Clips, Stopwatch.

• Procedure: 1. Cut out the basic (provided) helicopter design, fold it up, place the paperclip on the

bottom of the body, and test-fly it. The helicopter should be dropped from a constant height and its descent carefully timed with a stopwatch. Repeat at least three times and record the flight time from each

2. Modify one, and only one, aspect of the basic design. Fly and record as you did above.3. Modify another aspect of the original design and repeat again.4. Repeat this until you have tested at least three design modifications of your own.

DataDesign Trial # 1 (s) Trial #2 (s) Trial #3 (s)

Basic Template .75 .78 .73

Longer Rotors .85 .89 .92

Lighter Paper Clip .69 .72 ..70

Wider Cut-Out .54 .58 .65

Data Analysis

Basic Template Longer Rotors Lighter Paper Clip

Wider Cut-Out 0

0.5

1

1.5

2

2.5

3

Trial #3 (s) Trial #2 (s) Trial # 1 (s)

Conclusions

• The modification using more of the available paper for the rotors produced the longest flight time.

• More rotor area made for a longer flight.