Air resistance

Task 1: Top speeds (Levels 45)

A

1 Look at the pictures of cars if all of these had the same engine size and the same
mass, put them in order of the one with the highest top speed.
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2 Describe how you made your choice.
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Task 2: Colliding with particles (Levels 45)

In each of these pictures the person walking along and the car driving along the road are
colliding with the particles in the air. Add to the pictures the best way that you can think of
to show these collisions happening. Think about how many collisions there will be in
each case.
Worksheet 1:6:9

HarperCollinsPublishers 2009

Task 3: Terminal velocity (Levels 67)

You will need a 2 m long bamboo cane with paper flags at intervals along its length.
You will need a paper cake baking case and at least three stopwatches.
Working in groups of four, one of you should drop the paper cake case upside down from
the top of the cane shouting go when you do so. The other three start their stopwatches
at this point and watch carefully as the cake case falls. They should have decided in
advance who was going to time which flag and stop their individual clock at that point.
As you can measure the distance between flags you should be able to work out the speed
for each section to see if your cake case reaches terminal velocity. You should repeat your
experiment three times. You will have quite a lot of results to record.
Distance in cm
Top to Flag 1
Flag 1 to Flag 2
Flag 2 to Flag 3

Time in seconds

To Flag 1

To Flag 2

To Flag 3

To Flag 1

Flag 1 to Flag 2

Flag 2 to Flag 3

First try
Second try
Third try
Average

Average time
Average speed

1 Did your cake case reach terminal velocity?

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2 How can you tell?
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Worksheet 1:6:9

HarperCollinsPublishers 2009