Results go here
Analysis
· The first prediction, albeit rather basic, was correct and, although it was not tested, it is safe to presume that this is due to the fact that when the mass is larger, so is the terminal velocity. This means that the parachute can accelerate to a higher velocity resulting in a shorter time.
· As can be seen from the graph entitled “Average Times,” it can be seen that the drop in time is rather large to begin with but gets smaller as the mass increases. This cervical result leads one to believe that there is a limit to the terminal velocity. This would imply that once a larger mass is added, a “terminal” terminal velocity (for want of a better definition) is achieved beyond which a parachute cannot accelerate. This is presumably due to the lesser effect of air resistance at higher masses.
· The same pattern can be seen average velocities, but obviously going up rather than down, but to a lesser extent. Quite obviously, the average acceleration graph, however inaccurate it may be, is to an even lesser extent.
Evaluation
· As was said in the Notes section above, it would be highly preferable to be able to calculate the final velocity, and even better the terminal velocity. The final velocity could be calculated with the use of computer sensors to measure the velocity in the last, say, 10cm. In order to calculate the terminal velocity it would be sensible to increase the distance travelled in order to ensure that the parachute does indeed reach terminal velocity before the velocity at the end is measured.
· As far as inaccuracies are concerned, it is obvious to see, from the Average Times graph, that the most problematic results are those measured for a mass of 8g. Fortunately, they even out to provide a good average curve.
· Another problem could be the results for a mass of 20g where you can see that the results seem to converge as opposed to following the otherwise reasonably error-free curve.
· Lastly, it must be further re-iterated that the Average Accelerations, and to a lesser extent the Average Velocities, use very inaccurate results due to the fact that the final velocity, and therefore the acceleration, is unknown. Therefore, the graphs of those results show very little of value other than to highlight the aforementioned inaccuracies, because they show up much more on those graphs.
