Results Update

Project Title How To Make an Aircraft Invisible to Radar

Student(s) Name(s) Devang Doshi, Vamsi Tadi

Research Question(s) Which shapes scatter the least light?

1. Shapes with sharp edges will likely scatter the most light.
2. The ray of light will hit a medium, with some light being
absorbed, and the rest will reflect off in radiation.
3. The test shapes will affect the amount of light scattered with
Hypothesis / Engineering Goals each test shape’s different color and edges. A darker color
like black paper will absorb light instead of reflecting it, so it
will scatter less light. A shape with sharp edges will scatter
more light, as opposed to a shape with more rounded edges
like a cylinder.
 Proof of Data
● Paste proof that you have collected data.
This may include:
o Pictures / screenshots
o Link to Excel or Google Sheet
o Word / Google doc with textual data
from survey or interview responses

Graph 1
 Graph 2

Graph 3

Description of Data Collection We placed folded paper shapes such as cylinders and paper folded in
● In 3 – 5 complete thoughts, address how halves into the box, then placed the lux meter sensor in a pre-cut
you collected data including: hole in the box, then we turned on the LED flashlight and waited until
 o What tools did you use to collect thethe meter got a steady reading. The LED flashlight and lux meter
data? were the main tools used to collect the data.
o How many data points did you We collected data for 11 shapes and two trials per piece, totaling 22
collect? trials. We did multiple trials to attempt to ensure the most accuracy
possible.
Description of Trends in Data To analyze the data, we decided to repeat the experiment twice with
● In 3 – 5 complete thoughts, address your every shape to make sure our data remains consistent. We saw some
data analysis including: trends in the data with how putting the sides farther apart and
o How did you analyze the data? without orientation yields higher light being scattered. Though,
o What trends did you see in the data? orientation included is better in some cases where the sides are not
as far apart. This points to the conclusion that the perfect amount of
What is the relationship between the
each yields the highest light scattered. We originally thought that we
variables?
would get the highest light scattered with the crumpled cylinder,
o Is this what you expected to find? since the sides were mashed up into many different angles. But,
Explain (including connection to cylinders seem to be the least effective with their overall smooth and
literature) round sides. The shapes folded in half and quarters proved to be the
most effective, since they had the sharpest sides.
Graph 1 shows that book orientation consistently scattered more
light, making it less stealthy. This data is reliable because we
conducted multiple trials of everything.
Graph 2 shows that the more space was present between the
shapes, the more light was scattered. This indicates that closely
packed together shapes are likely more stealthy than spread out
shapes.
Application to Question(s) / Hypothesis Our first hypothesis was correct. Book orientation meant that there
● Answer the research question(s) and state were 2 sharp edges facing the light, and V meant there was just one.
whether your hypothesis was supported V orientation generally had lower lux readings than book orientation,
proving that light is scattered more on sharp surfaces. When
comparing the cylinders, the normal cylinder had smoother edges,
the opposite of sharp, so it scattered less light. Therefore, smooth
objects scatter less light than objects with lots of sharp edges,
supporting our hypothesis.