Modeling fall of an object falling with air resistance

Purpose: The purpose of this lab is to determine the relationship between the air resistance force and speed of an object. We expect there to be determining factors in the the force resistance and graphs to show us relations.

Process: 

1)We studied this relation of air resistance and speed by using coffee filters as our objects that would drop from a second story balcony in a building. We found there to be factors in determining the air resistance force. These factors are generally the objects shape and speed. This equation is found to be  force of air resistance =kv^n. The k in this formula relates to the shape and area of the object. 

2) We used the video capture to capture 5 coffee filters dropping from the second balcony. We expect to find that each of these coffee filters reach terminal velocity eventually as they fall.  We then took the graphs that were recorded and attempted to linearize the curve we could obtain the terminal velocity. The slope is key to finding a velocity from the position versus time graph.

3) The next step was to take our data and then in excel create a table that would provide us with the terminal velocity. We created a table with columns. The time, change in velocity, velocity, acceleration, change in position, and position columns would eventually give us terminal velocity. We also added space for the k and n values of our equation. Smaller and smaller increments of time would give us a better result for our terminal velocity.

Conclusion: From the equipment we used and considering that excel is a good programming for acquiring this kind of data we our confident that our results are a good representation of terminal velocity.