Lucas

=Research Project 2010 Introduction:= toc Once i had completed and displayed my project last year, i began to think of many topics that i could have done instead or what i could do in the future. I was informed earlier this year that the class would have to do another project. So i recalled all of my ideas from the last eight months and could not decide what i wanted to do; i had too many ideas. These were my original ideas: how does the pitch of sound affect the size of ripples on water?, how does sticking your finger in the aerial port in a TV improve it's signal?, how does static electicity differ from mobile electricity?, what are the physical differences betwen centrifugal and centripetal force? I began to refine my ideas until i reached one, which was: what are the physical differnces between centrifugal and centripetal force? I researched this quite a bit and started thinking about an experiment that i could conduct. It was a good idea but i still felt a bit unsure until, about a week before the research proposal was due i came up with another idea. i was getting a bit side-tracked, thinking about planes when something occured to me: how do the curved shapes of aircraft wings generate lift? Because i am very interested in aircraft i decided to change my topic idea completely and research this instead.

Research Project 2009 Overview:
In 2009 everyone in our class conducted an individual research project to learn more about things of their interest. My topic last year was: "which adjusted variable of an electromagnet changes the magnetic force the most". for this i built an electromagnet out of a steel bolt, some copper wire, retort stands and clamps and of course- electricity. i adjusted the number of copper coils around the bolt and kept the electricity at 4 volts, and then recorded the result. After that i changed the voltage to 2 volts but doubled the number of coils for each of the previous test runs to compare the difference. the test results concluded for me that the voltage of the elecricity changed the strength of the electromagnet more than the number of coils.

Research Proposal
For my research project this year I am going to investigate how the angle of attack and wind speed produces lift on an aircraft wing. For this experiment i am going to test a replica of an aircraft wing (aerofoil) at a constant angle with different wind speeds and then a constant speed at different angles. I am going to do this by going to the local university and testing it in one of their smaller wind tunnels. I will start testing at zero degrees to find a zero angle of attack. The wing will be held on the wall of the wind tunnel with a single bolt which will allow it to be pushed up but without changing the angle. I will put a newtmeter on the other side which will be pulled downwards when the wing goes up and i will record the amount of newtons of force measured on it. I have been in regular contact with the engineering manager at the university and he has agreed to help me out with this project and my experiementing.