Name: Ray Arellano
Lab Partners: David Hwang & Jesus Hernandez
Date: 3/13/17
This lab involved modeling the effects of air resistance on an object experiencing free fall. It is believed that the effects of air resistance vary depending on the mass of the object falling, the material of the object, and the shape of the object.
In this lab, paper coffee filters were the objects that were put into free fall. Our job was to measure the terminal velocity of coffee filters as they descended from a certain height. When the force the object has while descending matches the force of air resistance, the object no longer accelerates and travels with a constant velocity known as its terminal velocity. This terminal velocity should vary as we changed the mass of the object descending by stacking coffee filters, adding one more than was present during the previous trial.
This image shows how the filter was dropped from a balcony. We used the Video Capture feature on the laptop that was provided in order to record the path of the coffee filters. Using Video Capture allowed us to see how far the coffee filters traveled at a specific time. Taking this information gave us the relationship between distance and time, resulting in information about the object's velocity. Eventually, we developed a graph that identified the air resistance force for the different masses we used in the experiment. Taking a power fit for this graph allowed us to derive our values for "k" and "n", which we used in the model Fresistance = kv^n. Once we had these values, we placed them into the spreadsheet we made and found the terminal velocity for the coffee filters.
This image shows the format we were supposed to use in order to calculate the terminal velocity of the coffee filters. We used the appropriate values for "k" and "n" in this specific sheet (5 filters).
In this image, we see the terminal velocity of five coffee filters. After t= 2.30s, the velocity of the five coffee filters began to show trends of staying constant. That is, they had almost reached their terminal velocity. The terminal velocity was 2.871373 m/s.
This model for finding the terminal velocity of an object experiencing free fall and air resistance works. However, we initially took a power fit of the wrong graphs and got wrong values of "k" and "n" which did not allow us to find the terminal velocity of the coffee filters. After our instructor reminded us of the appropriate graph to take a power fit of, our group was able to create the spreadsheet we needed to find the terminal velocities.
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