My prediction to this experiment is that, as I increase the weight, the speed will increase because otherwise the air resistance will not be balanced and the only way it will is to increase the speed.
I will make this experiment a fair test by keeping all the factors the same except for the weight and by this the only factor affecting my experiment will be the weight. I am going to keep the factors (same string length, same size for the plastic bag and same height) constant by using the same parachute throughout all the experiment and I will through the parachute from the same height all the time.
My apparatus is made of a 60 x 60 piece of a plastic bag, 2 strings, both the same size, weights of 0.1N, a chronometer and a ruler.
Diagram:
First, after you made your apparatus, someone stands on top of a table and puts the parachute at a certain height (always the same). Another person will be timing how long it takes the parachute to reach the floor with a chronometer. The parachute will only have 0.1 Newton the first time. After that, you record your results in a table (the weight in Newton’s and the time in seconds). Then you repeat the same 3 times to make sure it is not wrong and after getting an average, you calculate the terminal velocity, which is height/time. After, you do the same only this time you will add 0.1 Newton more. I will do this 7 times, each time adding 0.1 Newton. The range I am investigating is more the highest to the lowest readings.
Now, I will have to do a trial investigation to see if the experiment works.
After this trial experiment, I have seen that my experiment did work out well but there where some problems. Because of the air conditioner the parachute didn’t fall straight down and went side ways but turning it off solved this. At first, there was not enough space and the parachute fell on top of other things which made it harder so we had to move to other places, with less things surrounding us.
Height: 2.73 m
Graph: This agrees with my prediction because as the weight increases, the speed increases and forms a positive correlation and direct proportionality although my graph is not very accurate.
After this experiment, I have come to a conclusion. As the weight increases the air resistance increases, therefore the speed increases. My graph shows this and that if the weight doubles; the air resistance doubles as well (doubling the speed as well) so that the forces are balanced.
My experiment went quite well, however my results weren’t very accurate and weren’t exactly on the Line Of Best Fit. There was only one rogue and this could have been because the parachute sometimes slides to the side and this meant it took more time to land. Another reason could have been the lack of space since the parachute sometimes fell on top of things. The movement of the people could have affected the results as well. Overall, I don’t think this was a very accurate experiment because there were many factors that affected the results. This could have been more accurate by having better equipment, more space and a better method. For example while we timed the parachute in falling, it wasn’t very precise because we wouldn’t stop it right when it falls but with some difference in time. This could be improved by using a machine to take the time. There were enough readings in the experiment but they weren’t accurate enough to make a firm conclusion. To improve this, next time we will have to make sure there is enough space so that the parachute falls straight to the floor and maybe make a hole in the middle so that it falls straight down instead of sideways.
I would have liked to extend my investigation by investigating how a hole through the middle of the parachute would affect the speed and how much accurate it would fall so that the next time I have to do an experiment like this, I would know that I have (or not) to put a hole through the parachute. I think that as the hole gets bigger, the parachute will fall faster and more accurate.
