An Investigatory Project
I-INTRODUCTION
A. Background of the Study
When an object is dropped, the force of gravity will cause it to speed up as it falls. But friction with the air, called drag, will tend to cause it to slow down. How much drag there is depends mostly on two factors: speed and shape. The faster an object moves through air the more drag there is. A compact object experiences less drag than an object of the same mass that is spread out. As a falling object speeds up, drag increases until it is equal to gravity. At that point, the object continues to fall at a constant speed, called terminal velocity. The tightly folded piece of paper experiences less drag than the loosely crumpled piece. The balance between gravity and drag occurs at a lower speed, a lower terminal velocity, for the crumpled paper. The study was conducted to know the effect of air resistance with relationship to the area of the paper in free fall motion. The specific objective of the study was to determine the factors that affect the air resistance and to determine the effect of size and shape of the area in relation to the speed of fall of the paper on the ground. The crumpled paper would fall faster because it meets less air resistance over its smaller exposed surface. In addition to that the researcher wanted to determine how this research would be applied and useful to daily activities like skydiving, motorbike racing and other sports.
B. Statement of the Problem
This study aims to prove that size and shape of the paper will affect the air resistance it experienced. Specifically, this experimentation aims to answer the following questions:
1. What are the factors that affect air resistance?
2. What type of paper to be used?
Significance of