Hovercraft

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Title
Gasses and Hovercrafts

Problem Scenario
I'm trying to figure out which gas will impact the hovercraft most and will bring it highest.

Broad Question
What are the impacts of different gasses in a hovercraft?

Specific Question
Which of these gasses, helium, breath, or air, will impact the hover time of a hovercraft the most?

Hypothesis
With these three gasses, helium, breath, or air, the helium will impact the hovercraft the most because out of the three gases helium is the most efficient in terms of keeping the hovercraft up the longest.

General Plan
I am going to see which gas impacts hover time in a hovercraft the most, so I'm going to take three gasses, helium, breath, and air, and I'm going to put each hovercraft with a different gas and see which gas impacts the hovercrafts the most.

Potential Problems And Solutions
Problems.................................. Solutions

Balloons could pop.................... Have extras available Hovercraft could not work ..........Try, try, try again! Not being able to get the helium home....................Find a Way obviously! Malfunctions with glue and sticking stuff together.....................Retry or find another way

Safety Or Environmental Concerns
~The hovercraft could potentially crash which could be a concern. ~I'm not sure if this is a concern, but there could be too much helium in the environment. I've heard that that's bad for the environment. ~This may seem silly, but too much helium indigestion. You never know what people will do when given helium!

Number Of Trials:
6; two for each balloon.

Number Of Subjects In Each trial:
3 per trial.

Number of Observations:
As many as I can.

When data will be collected
3/17/2013

Where will data be collected?:
My house, in my living room.

Resources and Budget Table

 * Item || Number needed || Where I will get this || Cost ||
 * Balloons || 50 || Store || $1 ||
 * CD || 3 || Home || / ||
 * pop top bottle cap || 3 || Home || / ||
 * Helium || A tank || ? || ? ||
 * Breath || A lot || Me || / ||
 * Air || A lot || Everywhere || / ||
 * Poster Board || 1 || Staples || $5 ||
 * Air Compressor || 1 || Dad || / ||
 * Stopwatch || 1 || Me || / ||

Detailed Procedure
1. Gather all materials needed (Look at table above) 2. Create a measurement tool to measure the size of balloon filled up, by using a bowl, and fill the balloon up to the diameter of the bowl. 3. Create a hovercraft model using the CD's, Bottle Caps, and Balloons. 4. Glue the bottle cap to the top of the CD, covering the whole entire hole of the CD. 5. Let the glue dry. 6. Using the measurement tool, Inflate balloon number one with breath. 7. Inflate balloon number two with compressed air. 8. Inflate balloon number three with helium. Be sure not to pop the balloons! 9. While pinching the end of the balloon letting no air escape, put the balloon over the bottle cap, still letting no air escape. 10. Finally, pop the top on the bottle cap and let the air go, and watch the hovercraft fly! 11. Record observations as the hovercraft is flying. 12. Repeat steps nine through twelve for each type of gas. 13. Make a table in your science notebook that looks kind of like this:


 * Gas: || Helium || Breath || Compressed Air ||  ||   ||
 * Distance: || # || # || # ||  ||   ||

Data Table

 * Gas: || Helium || Breath || Compressed Air ||
 * Distance: || 56 centimeters || 28 centimeters || 21 1/2 centimeters ||

Results
When doing this experiment, I had done the experiment exactly as planned. It all turned out well except for the fact that the model hovercrafts kept turning in circles rather than heading forward. This may be something that scientists want to keep in mind if and when designing a hovercraft. The result of the experiment was what I expected, which indicates that it worked out great!

Conclusion
After performing this experiment I came to a conclusion that my hypothesis was correct, and that helium is the answer to all that prevailed. The compressed air died after spinning in circles a few times (go up to photos and see my video) and it only traveled 8 and a half centimeters, while helium traveled a whole 56 centimeters. And the breath traveled 28 centimeters, ranking second place on the distance scale. I believe that why the helium went the farthest is because the helium itself lifted the balloon up, which gave the model less weight, which made the model easier to lift across the surface.

Discussion
Even though this project may seem unoriginal and easy, it took a lot longer than you think. With technical difficulties like not being able to figure out how the helium works, not the right size balloons, and loss of glue, and stuff like that, it made this harder than it actually seems. And, this project may seem very unoriginal, but every time I've gone to the science fair I have never seen a project like this. And it has the originality of being it's own. If you go on the Science Buddies website and look at the hovercraft project under the Aerodynamics category, the hovercraft one is the first one. When you look on it, in the procedure it shows pictures and examples of how this project is being made. I took that project, added my own originality to it, and got what I got now. Originally it was to be testing different size balloons, but what I am going to do is see which gas is most effective and will help the model hovercraft travel. I am not so much seeming how high it goes, but rather how well it travels across a flat surface. Now, for my discussion! :)

The data didn't really have a pattern, it more or less just went. Like, if you say how's it going, well, it's just going. So in that case the data just kind of went as planned, without any initial pattern involved. I was able to answer the experiment question, and that lead to my hypothesis which was correct. Like I said in the top paragraph, I did have some technical difficulties in the process of performing this experiment like not being able to figure out how to work the helium, or having the glue not be strong enough, or whatever it was. This experiment could be made better by trying different gasses that may work better, or different size balloons, or stuff like that. There are so many ways to change this experiment up, so I would recommend that if someone would like to know which way of modeling a hovercraft is most effective, they should try it!

Benefit to Community and/or Science
This is a benefit to Community/Science because in the future, people most likely will travel by hovercraft, don't you think? So, when people are travelling by hovercraft they're going to want to know which gas they can rely on the best; helium, their own breath, or just air from an air compressor. They probably won't fill up a real sized hovercraft with their own breath, that could take forever. But if they filled it up with gasses like helium or air from an air compressor, they could see from my project which is more useful and then use that in the future. Scientists, this is a benefit to you too because if you want to know which gas is more efficient to use in other projects or scientific questions, here is where you go. If your question has anything to do with floating and hover time for anything, this is the project to look at because it will show which of these gasses are better, helium, breath, or air, and will also give you background research on any of the gasses so you can use it to help you along.

Background Research
Because my hypothesis revolves around helium, I did most of my background research on helium. I have some background research on the compressed air and breathing as well, but mostly helium because I really want to get to know a lot about it to see if my hypothesis will end up being correct through just background research.

Helium: Helium is a chemical element with symbol ** He ** and atomic number 2. It is a colorless, odorless, tasteless, non-toxic monotonic gas that has the noble gas group in the periodic table. Its boiling and melting points are the lowest of the elements and it exists only as a gas except in extreme conditions. Although it is rare on Earth, Helium is the second most abundant element in the known Universe after hydrogen consisting 23% of its mass. Most helium on Earth is from radioactive decay. Helium is used for many purposes that require some of its unique properties, such as its low boiling point, low density, or high thermal conductivity. Because it is lighter than air, airships and balloons are inflated with helium to go higher than normal balloons would. The age of rocks and minerals that contain uranium and thorium can be estimated by measuring the level of helium with a process known as helium dating. That is how helium ties in with science, besides the fact that it ties in with my project as well.

Compressed Air:

Compressed Air is air kept under a pressure that is greater than the pressure in the atmosphere. In industry, compressed air is so widely used that it is often regarded as the fourth utility, after electricity, natural gas and water. There are such things as air compressed rooms, which are rooms filled with compressed air. Pretty self explanatory but complicated at the same time. What is a compressed air room? What does it do? Well it's basically a room filled with compressed air can hold multiple air compressors and all that good stuff. A compressed air vehicle (CAV) is powered by an air engine, using compressed air, which is stored in a tank. These are just one out of the many items that involve using compressed air. Although it may not seem like it, compressed air can be very important in everyday life.

Breath: In addition to letting out carbon dioxide, breathing also gives loss of water from the body. There is really no information that I can find on the internet about what is in our breath besides the one mineral/ gas carbon dioxide, and the fact that we breathe out somewhat of water. That's why, when you breathe on a window or piece of glass when it's cold, you get that foggy stuff. That is the saliva in air form. I am sorry there really is no information I can proceed to relating to this experiment.

Abstract
Which gas, helium, compressed air, or breath will best impact a modern day hovercraft? I hypothesized that the gas would be helium. I then put my hypothesis to the test. I took a CD, and I put a bottle cap over the hole in the CD, and cut a hold in the bottle cap so I could slide the balloon through. Then, I inflated the balloons to a certain size, which I used a snack bowl to measure, and let them go over a flat surface with a yard stick next to it. After many tests, I came to a conclusion of helium being the best represented gas. The helium ended up staying up longest and traveling farthest as well.