Purpose: To understand two or more forces acting on an object, including gravity and friction
Problem: Why don't paper airplanes stay in the air forever?
Background: A force is a push or pull on an object. Depending on if these forces are balanced
or unbalanced; they can cause an object to move. Two unbalanced forces that we experience everyday are the forces of friction and gravity
Friction is a force that opposes motion as one object rubs against another. This is a force that always acts in the opposite direction of the object's motion. Gravity is another force that pulls all objects toward each other. Due to Earth's extremely large mass, all objects close to Earth are attracted toward it, like a magnet. Thus, gravity acts on objects in a downward direction toward the center of Earth.
Hypothesis: Paper airplanes do not stay in the air forever because the force of gravity is pulling them down.
Also the force of friction acts on the paper airplanes, opposing its motion and bringing it to a stop.
Materials: Paper, meter stick Procedure:
1. Make a paper airplane
2. Run three trials of your plane. Record the distance of each trial and then calculate the average. Include units!
Data Table:
Trail I. Trail 2. Trail 3
______ _____ _____
Average Distance:_______
3. Modification:
Modify your plane in some way (make the wings a different shape, add a paper clip, adjust the tail, etc.)
How did you modify the plane?_______
4. Run three addition trails of your plane. Record the distance of each trial and then calculate the average. Include units!
Data Table:
Trail 1. Trail 2. Trail 3
____. ______ _____
Average Distance:______
Questions: Answer each question in complete sentences.
1. What provided the force that caused your airplane to move? Was this force balanced or unbalanced?
_______________
2. What forces caused your airplane to slow down and come back to Earth? Were these forces balanced or unbalanced?
_______________
3. When the airplane was resting on the floor, was gravity still working? What about friction/air resistance? Explain vour answers
__________
Conclusion: (1. restate purpose, 2. was your hypothesis correct or incorrect, 3. give an example of how your hypothesis was correct or incorrect, 4. why do you think it happened that way, 5. tell what you learned, 6. how would you do this differently? Don't forget to write in complete sentences.)
ANSWER ALL QUESTIONS
1. The force that caused my airplane to move was the initial push I gave it when I threw it. This force was unbalanced.
2. The forces that caused my airplane to slow down and come back to Earth were gravity and friction. These forces were balanced.
3. When the airplane was resting on the floor, gravity was still working. Gravity always acts on objects, regardless of whether they are in motion or at rest. Friction, however, was not present as there was no motion to oppose.
Conclusion:
1. The purpose of the experiment was to understand the forces acting on a paper airplane.
2. My hypothesis was correct. The force of gravity pulled the airplane down and the force of friction acted against its motion, causing it to slow down.
3. An example of my hypothesis being correct is when I threw the paper airplane, it gradually descended and came to a stop due to gravity and friction.
4. It happened that way because gravity always pulls objects towards the Earth and friction opposes motion.
5. I learned that forces such as gravity and friction play a crucial role in the motion of objects.
6. If I were to do this differently, I would conduct the experiment in different environments to observe how factors such as air resistance affect the flight of a paper airplane.