Goal: To test sailboat features and discover its relationship with velocity of the sailboat.
Equipment: Gutter trough with water, electric fan, exacto knife, styrofoam sheeting, toothpicks, stop watch, and digital video camera.
Problem: What is the relationship between the size (area) of the sail and the velocity of the boat? Ryan and I are the partners, we chose that problem.
Hypothesis: We predicted that the taller of the sail, the faster it will be, and the shorter of the sail, the slower it will be.
Procedure: First of all, we used the exacto knife to make styrofoam sheeting into a sailboat, we carefully designed the sailboat to ensure that we would not demolish nor sink our sailboat. We designed a boat with a sail upfront, and then inserted several toothpicks in the boat to hold the sail.We struggled and frustrated at first, but accomplished at last. We did pretty job designing our sailboat. We measured three lengths of sail, which were 24.5 cm, 20 cm, and 15 cm. As for area, three lengths were 220.5 cm2, 180 cm2, and 135 cm2. The width of this boat was 9 cm. The length of the gutter from start to finish line was 255 cm. We use the formula, V= d/t, to find the velocity of those three different measurment.
Result:
Average: 34.56cm/s 30.77 cm/s 31.69 cm/s
Movie Motion Analysis
Link to a movie showing the sailboat moving.
Equipment: Gutter trough with water, electric fan, exacto knife, styrofoam sheeting, toothpicks, stop watch, and digital video camera.
Problem: What is the relationship between the size (area) of the sail and the velocity of the boat? Ryan and I are the partners, we chose that problem.
Hypothesis: We predicted that the taller of the sail, the faster it will be, and the shorter of the sail, the slower it will be.
Procedure: First of all, we used the exacto knife to make styrofoam sheeting into a sailboat, we carefully designed the sailboat to ensure that we would not demolish nor sink our sailboat. We designed a boat with a sail upfront, and then inserted several toothpicks in the boat to hold the sail.We struggled and frustrated at first, but accomplished at last. We did pretty job designing our sailboat. We measured three lengths of sail, which were 24.5 cm, 20 cm, and 15 cm. As for area, three lengths were 220.5 cm2, 180 cm2, and 135 cm2. The width of this boat was 9 cm. The length of the gutter from start to finish line was 255 cm. We use the formula, V= d/t, to find the velocity of those three different measurment.
| Attempt |
220.5 cm2 |
180 cm2 |
135 cm2 |
| 1st |
T= 7.01 seconds V= 33.51 cm/s |
8.00 seconds 31.88 cm/s |
7.59 seconds 33.60 cm/s |
| 2nd |
8.48 seconds 30.07 cm/s |
8.02 seconds 31.80 cm/s |
7.60 seconds 33.55 cm/s |
| 3rd |
8.88 seconds 28.72 cm/s |
8.12 seconds 31.40 cm/s |
7.04 seconds 36.22 cm/s |
Average: 34.56cm/s 30.77 cm/s 31.69 cm/s
Movie Motion Analysis
Link to a movie showing the sailboat moving.