In science class we how to do the scientific method while doing a trial about paper airplanes. In this lab, we had to create a question about paper airplanes and test out if our question would make paper airplanes go a further distance or less of a distance. Our question was how does the placement of extra weight on paper airplanes affect the distance it goes?

Once we had this question, we had to create a hypothesis. Our hypothesis was that when weight is added to the front of the plane it will travel a farther distance because when you put the weight on the back of the plane it will increase the drag and result in the plane going a shorter distance.

We tested our hypothesis by having a paper airplane that had no weight at all and we had that plane as our control group. We then tested two more planes and compared them to the control group. The two other planes had either extra weight on the front or extra weight on the back. We tested each plane 5 times and came up with an average as you can see in the graph below:

The results are fairly consistent and as a group, we are generally happy with what we got. The only thing that we could have done better to make the average more accurate was throw out the trial where we got 9.0 meters in the control group. We should have thrown this trial out because it was almost 2 meters more than the next highest result and so it was a completely inconsistent number and it would dramatically bring the average up with just five trials. So, to make our averages more accurate we should’ve just done another trial with the control group and found a number that was more consistent to use in the average.

Doing these trials, we found that by having weight on the back of the plane dramatically reduces the amount that the plane will fly. We believe this is because it causes more drag on the plane which allows the plane to go a much shorter distance. We also learned that having weight on the front of the plane will make the plane fly slightly farther but not too much of a difference.

Something else we would do differently is to take our measurements from where the plane landed instead of including where the plane glided on the ground. This is because by doing this, there are other variables that we have to consider instead of just the flight distance. For example, dirt can make an effect on how much the plane glides on the ground because if there is more dirt, the plane will most likely glide a smaller distance.

Overall I believe this assignment went well and it was a good introduction into the scientific method.

The following images were taken during the assignment: