By Michel Moninger 8th Grade Coming in for a Landing! By Michel Moninger 8th Grade

Table of Contents 1. Title Page 2. Table of contents 3. Introduction 4. Materials 5. Method (Pre-Drop) 6. Methods (The Drop) 7. Methods (Post-Drop) 8. Results 9. Discussion 10. Conclusion 11. Acknowledgements 12. Bibliography

Introduction I came up with this idea when I was thinking about the cartoons where people would jump, then just open their umbrellas and glide down. I knew that was out of the question, but that got me thinking, what is the best shaped parachute? I wanted to test the best three-dimensionally shaped parachute, all with the same volume, 343 cubic cm. My hypothesis is that the baseless square pyramid shaped parachute with be the slowest, because unlike the baseless cube and cylinder, it does not have a flat top.

Materials The Materials I used were as follows: Paper Ruler with cm Scissors Ladder, or something to stand on. 10 1.5 g weights Stopwatch Pencil 7 Paperclips Pliers A ladder, or some way to get to 3.88 m. Foam

Methods (Pre-Drop) Step 1. Make the parachutes, like so: Cube A. Make 5 squares with sides of 7 cm each. B. Tape the edges together. C. Punch 4 holes directly across from one another at the midpoints of the bases, 3.5 cm across with the pencil. Pyramid A. Make 4 isosceles triangles with sides of 11.44 cm and bases of 10 cm each. C. Punch 4 holes directly across from one another at the midpoints of the bases, 5 cm across with the pencil. Cylinder A. Make a base circle with a radius of 4 cm. B. Make a rectangle with a height of 6.77 cm and a length of 25.1 cm. C. Tape the length of the rectangle to the sides of the circle. D. Punch 4 holes directly across from one another with the pencil. Step 2. Straighten out 6 paperclips and put them in the holes. Bend the ends sticking out. (I used the pliers for this.) Step 4. Cut a 10 cm string and tie it to the ten 1.5 g weights. Attach a paperclip to the string. Step 5. Attach the weight to the intersections of the clips. Step 6. Ready to drop!

Method (The Drop) Step 1. Lay out foam so the parachutes don’t rip. Step 2. With parachutes in hand, climb the ladder, or some way to get to 3.88 m. Step 3. Be ready with the stop watch. Step 4. First, drop the weight 3 times as a control. Then drop the parachutes, and time their decent. Drop all three each three times. You will end up with 9 times. Step 5. Record all 9 times.

Methods (Post-Drop) Step 1. Take all three times for each parachute and put them in a chart, like in the next slide. Step 3. Find the average number for each, and put that. Step 4. Whichever parachute has the lowest average wins. They took quite a beating!

Results Parachute Time 1 (in seconds) Time 2 (in seconds) Average (in seconds) Cube 0.93 1.00 0.97 Pyramid 1.07 1.03 1.06 Cylinder 0.90 0.94 0.91 0.92 Control 0.87 0.88 0.79 0.85

Discussion The winner of titles “highest average drag”, “Longest descent”, and “least damage” would have to be the baseless square pyramid. If I were to do this project again, I would make sure all of the bases would be equal, and I would drop the parachutes from a higher height. A few things that I could not control were where the parachute drifted, if there was a breeze or updraft, or if there was an obstruction.

Conclusion In the end, my project did support my hypothesis. This could be applied to the real world in that if you made larger parachutes, the times would be longer. Which would you rather be on, on a parachute that takes 1.06 seconds, or just free-fall and take .85 seconds?

Acknowledgements I have to thank my father, for helping me find supplies, remember the measurements, and more.

Bibliography Garcia, M.A., & Veneruso, T. (2009). Parachutes.. Retrieved from http://www.seed.slb.com/v2/FAQView.cfm?ID=344