AERODYNAMICS
September 12, 2018 - Students learned about aerodynamics and movement of air around a car specifically built for speed. They also learned about drag, or air resistance, one of the three principles of aerodynamics, which limits how fast a car can go. Each student built a paper model race car and did trial runs using ramps, marking how far the car went. They then tested air resistance by adding an index card to the back of their cars. The force of air pushed against the index card slowed the race cars. As a result, the race cars without the index card went farther than the ones with the card taped to the back.
After the learning was done, groups competed with each other to find out who built the best aerodynamically race car. After 11 rounds of racing, Grant has the best built car which traveled an incredible distance of 19.5 feet. Congratulations Grant! Photos by: Eduardo (Monterey Bay) |