Hello, everyone. Today, I will be blogging about what I’ve learnt through our experiment of the Egg Parachute. The aim of our lesson is to protect our egg and prevent it from breaking when it falls. This activity was meant to teach us to understand the forces that occur when dropping our Egg Parachute. My partners: Lottie and Hanin, worked with me through the experiment.
Research:
- Include the link to your planning + any other research you did about what makes a good parachute. Why did you choose to design your parachute how you did?
In our class, we didn’t have any specific planning; we did it on the spot in one day (which likely is the reason why our parachute looked haywire). However, me and my partners did do a little research of what would make a parachute stay in the air longer―based on our research of observing photos of parachutes, we gathered that having a a full circle parachute top was most efficient, so we executed the plan as such. We do not have any specific planning sheet nor paper; we did it immediately as we were told.
Method:
- Numbered steps of the experiment. Should include planning, building, and dropping your parachute. Include photos of your parachute.
- Gather all materials to build the Egg Parachute―Tape, string, a straw, a cut up plastic bag, a paper cup, thin strip of styrofoam, and four pieces of pipe cleaners (extra).
- Cut up quarter of the paper cup and place the piece on the bottom of the cup to create stability―tape it together.
- Place the thin strip of styrofoam and bunch it up together to create a protection system from the landing impact for the egg.
- Cut up the straw into four even pieces and place it in each corner of the cup with the styrofoam to create tightness and more safety for the egg.
- Take the plastic bag and poke four small little holes in the near edge (e.g: the way North, East, South, West is presented).
- Take the paper cup and poke four small little holes near the edge (e.g: the way North, East, South, West is presented).
- Cut up the string into even pieces and tie it to the holes you have created.
- Extra: Me and my partners made little decorations for the egg using pipe cleaners.
Now you have your parachute ready in action.
Results:
- Did your egg break? How long did it take for your egg to fall? How did this compare to the rest of the class’s parachutes?
Yes, sadly, our egg did break. It took an estimate of a max of six seconds or less (we didn’t time it), for it to land and break on the ground. The fall of our Egg Parachute compared to our classmates was, to put it lightly, a total disaster. It went haywire, and crashed into the tree before landing fully on the ground, which caused the parachute to spin around and land violently on the ground―the way we tied the strings played a big part of the results.
Discussion:
- Why did some of the parachutes fall faster than others? Link this to the formula for forces (F = ma)
- Were the forces balanced or unbalanced when your egg was falling? Link this to air resistance and weight.
Conclusion:
- How would you improve your design next time? Why would you do this? Reflect on how your experiment went.
If we were to execute this experiment in the future, there are a few tweaks I would do. First off, I would request for more time and have an actual week to plan rather than being forced to rush everything all in one day; I personally wasn’t proud of the results on the parachute. The second tweak I would do is to cut everything evenly (mainly the string). The third tweak I would do is to