1. Improving the Design of a Paper Helicopter
Oscar Pineda-Catalan
The New York Academy of Sciences

2. Table of Contents (1 slide)
Introduction
Background
Research Question
Hypotheses
Methods
Experimental Design
Statistical Analyses
Results
Analysis & Interpretation
Conclusions
References
Acknowledgements

3. Introduction (2–3 slides) Provide relevant background information, define your research question, and state your hypothesis.
Background
Need for simple, affordable activity to teach students in low resource areas basic principles of physics
Research Question
Is it possible to modify the design of a paper helicopter to maximize it’s flight time?

4. Introduction (2–3 slides) Provide relevant background information, define your research question, and state your hypothesis.
Hypothesis Tested
Paper helicopters built using a modified design fly longer than those built using a standard design.

5. Methods (1–2 slides) Describe the experiment(s) you designed to test your hypothesis, and any statistical analyses you conducted.
Example
Data Set:
Flight time collected from 10 helicopters of each design
Two-sample t-test to compare average flight times of each design
H0: Average (𝝻) flight time of helicopters built using original design ≥ 𝝻 flight time of helicopters built using new design
Ha: 𝝻 flight time of helicopters built using original design < 𝝻 flight time of helicopters built using new design
t-test at 95% confidence level (𝜶 = 0.05) and 18 degrees of freedom (𝝼)

6. Results (2–3 slides) Present the results of your experiment(s) without interpretation.
Parameter
Original Design
New Design
Number of Observations 10
Mean Flight Time
2.47 s
2.15 s
Standard Deviation
± 0.12
± 0.25 H0
𝝻 flight time of original design ≥ 𝝻 flight time of new design Ha
𝝻 flight time of original design < 𝝻 flight time of new design 𝜶
0.05 𝝼 18
tcrit
1.734
tobs
3.60
Example

7. Results (2–3 slides) Include graphs that show your results and facilitate comparing your control and experimental groups.
Example

8. Analysis & Interpretation (2–3 slides) Interpret your results.
Example
On average, helicopters built using the original design flew longer than helicopters built using the new design.
Given the results obtained, the null hypothesis cannot be rejected.

9. Conclusions (1–2 slides) State your strongest results, and explain how you interpret them.
Example
Based on the samples of helicopters analyzed in this experiment, we cannot conclude that the new design produces helicopters that fly longer than the original design.
However, the samples were small, with only 10 helicopters of each design tested. Larger samples should be analyzed to obtain more accurate flight times for each design.

10. References (1 slide)
List the references you used. (Alternatively, you may include references as citations or footnotes in your slides.)
Andersson, Ö. (2012). Chapter 8: Statistics for Experiments. In: Andersson, Ö. Experiment! Planning, Implementing and Interpreting. Wiley, pp. 139–174.

11. Acknowledgements (1 slide)
Be sure to thank anyone who helped you conduct your experiment(s)!
I would like to thank:
The New York Academy of Sciences
My Instructor
Others