This investigation will look at the effects of air resistance on falling objects, where the objects will have the same dimensions but different masses.

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DE COURSEWORK

Introduction

This investigation will look at the effects of air resistance on falling objects, where the objects will have the same dimensions but different masses. I will firstly model these situations to make predictions. This can then be experimented to obtain a set of results which we can use to test the models. The objects that we used were paper cake cups. We can change the mass by stacking these cups together, where stacking has no significant change on the overall profile as it drops.

Modelling Assumptions

As I am modelling this, there are assumptions that need to be made in order for the models to be more practical:

* The value of g (the acceleration due to gravity) is constant (9.81 m/s). This is probably not very significant as the actual mass of the paper cups is small, and so the value of g will be quite constant.

* The centre of mass remains the same. The assumption will not be very significant as the centre of mass would be quite constant.

* The paper cups reach terminal velocity. This is important as if the paper cups