COFFEE FILTERS AND AIR RESISTANCE

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Will Gebbie_________________________________ Gio Caal____________________________________ Tyler Keck___________________________________ Drake Hartwell________________________________ January 17, 2015

PURPOSE: The purpose of this experiment is to use a relatively low terminal velocity of empty coffee filters to test the conjecture that air resistance can be modeled as a power function of velocity and if so, what the exponent n of the power function representation is.

Procedure:
In the beginning of the lab we collected the 6 coffee filters from the teacher, then we had our tallest team member(Tyler Keck) stand on top of the table taking extra safety procedures. After measuring the distance between the ceiling and floor (3.05 m), we were recorded how long it took for the coffee filters to hit the ground starting with 1 and adding another filter with each trial. We recorded each test 4 times to get the average time for each amount. We then returned the 6 coffee filters to the teacher as a clean up procedure. Materials:
● 6 Coffee Filters
● Timer
● Meter stick Calculations/ Results:
a. Average fall time: FORMULA: (4 trials times/ 4)
● 1 filter: 2.19 s
● 2 filters: 1.165 s
● 3 filters: 1.11 s
● 4 filters: .991 s
● 5 filters: .991 s
● 6 filters: .970 s b. Standard Deviation: FORMULA: (
Σ(x­mean)^2)/n­1)^1/2
● 1 filter: 0.1493
● 2 filters: 0.0238
● 3 filters: 0.07365
● 4 filters: 0.00823
● 5 filters: 0.00823
● 6 filters: 0.10708 c. Terminal Velocity:
FORMULA: (height/average time)
● 1 filter: 1.39 m/s
● 2 filters: 2.62 m/s
● 3 filters: 2.75 m/s
● 4 filter: 3.08 m/s
● 5 filters: 3.08 m/s
● 6 filters: 3.14 m/s

e. Natural Logarithm for Terminal Velocity:
FORMULA: ln(terminal velocity)
● 1 filter: .329
● 2 filters: .963
● 3 filters: 1.01
● 4 filters: 1.13
● 5 filters: 1.13
● 6 filters: 1.14 f. Natural Logarithm for each