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Weight Placement in Paper Airplanes

The experiment aimed to determine how the placement of weight, specifically a paper clip, affects the distance a paper airplane can fly. Initially hypothesizing that placing the weight at the front would yield the best results, the findings revealed that positioning the weight in the middle actually produced the longest flight distance. The study highlights the importance of weight distribution in aerodynamics and suggests improvements for future experiments to ensure more consistent results.

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milliebug12242059
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30 views19 pages

Weight Placement in Paper Airplanes

The experiment aimed to determine how the placement of weight, specifically a paper clip, affects the distance a paper airplane can fly. Initially hypothesizing that placing the weight at the front would yield the best results, the findings revealed that positioning the weight in the middle actually produced the longest flight distance. The study highlights the importance of weight distribution in aerodynamics and suggests improvements for future experiments to ensure more consistent results.

Uploaded by

milliebug12242059
Copyright
© All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd

How can we increase the

distance of the paper airplane?


Millie Krahwinkel
Jayden Jung
Hypothesis
Our hypothesis is that paper airplanes with a
weight in the front such as a paper clip will help
increase the distance the most.
Introduction
Our plan for this project is to test out what kind of simple
way we can maximize the distance of paper airplane it
flies. So, we were going to test out which paper airplane
design is the best, and test out adding weight in the front,
middle, and back, and record the distance it flies.
We expected that adding the weight in the front
would maximize the distance of the paper airplane.
This experiment is important because knowing what kind
of paper airplane flies the farthest helps us to understand
how flight works, learn more about aerodynamics, and
make a better future design for the paper airplane.
Procedure
1) Build a variety of types of paper airplanes (Basic Dart, Lock Bottom, Hunting Flight)
2) Record and test out which design of paper airplane flies the furthest
3) Choose the top 3 airplanes
4) Add weights (Paper clip) in the front, middle, and back
5) Check which one flies the furthest, and record the data
6) Graph the data
Discussion
During our experiment with paper airplanes we tested the placement of paper clips
at the front, middle and back-would affect the distance the airplane could travel.
Before conducting the experiment, we hypothesized that placing the paper clip at the
front would cause the plane to go further. We thought this because placing a paper
clip at the front shifts its center of gravity forward which improves the stability of
the paper airplane. This stability can contribute in helping the plane glide straighter
and farther allowing the paper airplane to cover more ground. It turners out that our
hypothesis was incorrect. After conducting the experiment and collecting data from
each placement of the paper clips found that the paper airplane with the clip placed
in the middle covered more distance than the ones with the clips at the front or the
back. If we were to redo our experiment something we would do different would be
to ensure more consistent throws maybe by using a launching device or having a
person throw with the same force and technique for each of the planes. This would
help reduce variations of differences from the data in how the airplanes were
launched leading to more accurate and reliable results.
Conclusion
In conclusion, our experiment showed that the
placement of the paper clip significantly affects the
distance the airplane can cover. While we first
hypothesized that placing the clip at the front of the
plane would increase the distance, the results revealed
and proved that placing the clip in the middle produced
the best performance.
References
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20may%20stall%20easily.

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[Link]
Aero_p046/aerodynamics-hydrodynamics/how-far-will-paper-planes-fly
Results
No paper clip
6

4.5

1.5

0
Attempt 1 Attempt 2 Attempt 3
With a paper clip (middle)
9

8.25

7.5

6.75

6
Attempt 1 Attempt 2 Attempt 3
Paper clip position (Basic Dart)
11

8.25

5.5

2.75

0
Attempt 1 Attempt 2 Attempt 3

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