Name: Lucas Lum

SCIENTIFIC INVESTIGATION: THE ROTOCOPTER LAB

PURPOSE: You have been chosen as engineers to build a rotocopter! Once built, you must carry out an
investigation where you will determine the relationship between blade length and flight time. Let’s use the
scientific method to investigate the relationship.

HYPOTHESIS: (in “if…then…” format)

If the length of the rotocopter is longer, then it should take longer for the rotocopter to drop, when dropped at
the same height, using the same material.

MATERIALS: (all necessary materials listed in sufficient detail)

1 pair of scissors

rocopter paper

4 paper clips

Rocopter instructions

Timer

VARIABLES:

INDEPENDENT Length of the wings

DEPENDENT Time for Rocopter to drop to the ground
CONSTANT(S) Height of drop, material,

PROCEDURE: (up to 6 relevant steps that are easy to understand and written in 3rd person passive voice)

1. Step 1 cut out all the rotocopters from the paper templates given using a pair of scissors.

2. Step 2-fold the rotocopter with the given instructions, and add a paperclip to the bottom in order to keep it
intact.

3. Label each rotocopter, one being A, and the other being B. Measure each of the rotocopter blade lengths.

4. Create your hypothesis, relating to the independent variable, and dependent variables.

5. Test your hypothesis, drop the rotocopter, at the same height, and record your data.
 Name: Lucas Lum

6. Put your data in a graph, and reflect the data to your hypothesis, whether your hypothesis was supported or
not.

Results: (data table that is titled and contains raw data and correct units)

Rotocopters Time of Drop Test #1 Time of Drop Test #2

Rotocopter A (6cm) 6.4 seconds 6.6 seconds

Rotocoper B (3.4cm) 3.2 seconds 4.3 seconds

GRAPH: (graph is titled, properly labeled, properly plotted, with an appropriate scale)
 Name: Lucas Lum

ANALYSIS: (describe your graph and patterns/trends in your data)

ERROR ANALYSIS: (discuss 2 ways of improving your investigation)

1. One way to improve our investigation can be the wind currents, if students are walking by during the test,
which can affect the time of how long the rotocopter stays in the air for.

2. The second way is human brain reaction time to starting and stopping the timer, which can affect the time
when the rotocopter is in the air, and may cause a small miscalculation.

CONCLUSION: (briefly summarize and clearly state your results, your hypothesis is confirmed or rejected based
on your data)

With the conclusion of the experiment, I can conclude that my hypothesis was indeed correct, after the data
was collected. The rotocopter with a 6 cm wingspan, was able to average 6.5 seconds in the air before
dropping, while the 3.4 cm wingspan took an average of 3.75 seconds to drop.