Rachel Downs, Makayla Ianuzzi, James O’Donnell, and Sara Sohmer

 We did this the day of the video conference. This is a picture of our group pulling together ideas for the construction.

 We researched over the entire course of the project.  When something didn’t work, we always went back to the internet.  A good, stable foundation of knowledge provided a good starting point for analyzing and inventing.

 Air molecules are in rows, and they must stay in those rows.  Air is a fluid, so it will cling onto the glider as long as it can.  If a surface is curved on top and flat on the bottom, the molecules on top must travel faster than the ones on the bottom.  The principle states that the faster the molecules travel, the less pressure there will be.

 When the pressure is lower on top than the bottom, the higher pressure on the bottom will push the aircraft upward.  A good example of this is when you blow on top of the piece of paper, the paper lifts up to the level of your mouth.  This principal is important for our glider because we need to overcome lift and drag.

 The most important thing to remember when designing the parts of the glider is the aerodynamics of them.  The aerodynamics are important for two reasons.  The first is that our glider can’t have a lot of drag.  The second is that we need to consider Bernoulli’s principal so that our glider can overcome both weight and drag.

 We also need to have the least amount mass on our glider to decrease the weight pulling our glider down.  To do this, we didn’t add a lot of extra stuff to our glider.  We even tried not to use too much glue or tape.  We chose the lightest shoebox we had.

 To find the glide slope ratio, we divided the distance our glider traveled by the height from which we dropped it.  There are many factors that go into this like how hard we throw it and the design of the aircraft.

 This ratio is very similar to the glide to slope ratio.  To be precise, how we calculate it is similar to the previous ratio, but what it shows is different.  This ratio shows how the glider overcomes the drag rather than how far it can travel.

 The aspect ratio shows the size of the wing.  The higher the aspect ratio is, the better the glide to slope ratio will be.  This means that the glider will travel more horizontally than vertically.  The reason for this is that is will cause less drag.  To get the aspect ratio, you divide the length of the wing by the width.

 Weight is a force caused by the gravitational attraction of the earth.  The gravity depends on the mass of all of the parts of the glider.  The weight must be distributed evenly.

 Drag is the force that resists motion.  A thin and small frame would create the least amount of drag.  The thrust of the aircraft must overcome the drag.  Better aerodynamics will decrease drag.

 Lift is a mechanical force generated by a solid object moving through a fluid.  If there is no fluid, there is no lift.  The aircraft must also have motion to generate lift.  The higher the speed, the lower the pressure, and that means that there is less pressure.

 The aircraft must have good aerodynamics for lift.  The design of the glider determines the speed of the fluid rushing past the it.

 The only thrust that will be applied to the glider will be before it is in flight.  To increase the thrust acting on the glider, we could possibly run with it before letting it go.  There is a formula that is needed to calculate the exact thrust needed.  The formula is Ft=m∆v

 We thought about our research and decided to create a prototype to check our ideas.  When we were analyzing our research we also began brainstorming again to plan our design.  Planning our design became difficult at times because we had to consider every piece of research we collected.

 We chose to have curved wings so it would have more aerodynamics.  The tail was made to stabilize the glider.  Also, the nose was created to give the plane increased aerodynamics and to create less surface area.  This is a picture of our blueprints

 These are the results of the prototype:  Throw 1: Distance- 310cm Height- 119cm Throw 2: Distance- 526cm Height- 119cm Throw 3: Distance- 201cm Height- 119cm The glide slope ratios: 2.6cm:1cm, 4.4cm:1cm, and 1.7cm:1cm  The aspect ratio: 1.3cm:1cm  The lift to drag ratios: 2.6, 4.4, and 1.7  The aspect ratio was too low for a successful flight

 These are the results of our real glider:  Throw 1: Distance- 305cm Height-127cm  Throw 2: Distance- 343cm Height-127cm  Throw 3: Distance- 290cm Height-127cm  The glide slope ratios: 2.4cm:1cm, 2.7cm:1cm, and 2.3cm:1cm  The aspect ratio: 2.72:1cm  The lift to drag ratios: 2.4, 2.7, and 2.3  Our ratios were much better.

 Our second glider model worked much better than our prototype glider.  There are many reasons for this because we did a lot of research after we created the prototype.  The wings on our first glider were not nearly as big as the second glider’s.  The second glider’s shoebox was much smaller than the first as well.

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