My team and I DJBT are currently in the progress of completing step two in the process of designing the parachute for our delivery system. These are the criteria we want to accomplish on our final product; soft landing, which secures no damage to the delivery, also we decided that the accuracy of the product should be within a radius of 30 centimeters.

Here is a summary of step two in the process. After my partner and I completed our research question, which is what is the best size of the parachute and taken down a sufficient number of notes, how will the right-sized parachute affect the drag/air resistance? For phase two in Project Collision, is that we need to use our knowledge and the information we learned from our research question to put it into our thinking of the design of the parachute.

Using the formula, I learned from uidaho.edu, I calculated the radius circular parachute, and the most recent prediction, which is the best we had decided upon for the radius of the parachute, is 44 centimeters. According to the University of Leicester, one of the top 25 universities in the world, the more area contacting more air molecules, the more air resistance is formed. So, I did some calculations of the surface area on a circular parachute and rectangular parachute – which have the same length for one’s diameter and the other’s length. I compared the results, which clearly shows the difference, the circular chute’s surface area is much larger than the rectangular one. So, our initial design should be a circular parachute with a radius of 44 centimeters.

Data Procedure  

  1. Set up the camera/Ipad VERTICALLY so it can see the entire drop area. (Align the bottom line of the landing zone with the bottom part of the camera) 
  1. Make sure the landing zone is clear. 
  1. Turn on the dropping-machine (turn on the main board first, then the controller) 
  1. Put the box to the hanger 
  1. Start recording before drop 
  1. Drop the parachute when people say, “Chicken Nugget” (R button Up, D button Down) 
  1. Stop recording once the parachute is dropped on the floor. 
  1. Airdrop/upload the recording file to computer. 
  1. Measure the radius from the mid-point (in cm) 
  1. Insert video into LoggerPro. 
  1. Record the data on a data table 
  1. Repeat 3 times per variable