Progress Update

We have finished and submitted our final Experimental Design. We have all the materials we need for trials, but we need to redesign our car. The car will not move in the wind tunnel, so we are going to rework it and try to use less clay. If we can accomplish that, we will be completely set for the start of trials on Monday.

Blog Overview

Problem: How does the dimple size on the outer layer of a car affect the force of drag on that car?

Our project will take a car model and cover it in clay, then cover it in clay. The clay will be dimpled and the car will placed in the wind tunnel and hooked up to a force sensor which will measure the drag force. This will be done for three different dimple sizes and a control car with a smooth surface. We will use an ANOVA and two-sample t tests to analyze the data.

Independent Variable: dimple size (cm)

Dependent Variable: drag force (N)

Response to Cybulski Blog Questions

Pre-Trials went alright. We ended up redesigning our experiment and did not get to run any actual trials. We went from using a clay covered model car to a lab car with a curved foam top. We are done with constructing our new car setup. We will try to get in actual pre-trials this week.

The Review is Literature only needs minor edits. It is overall comprehensive and grammatically correct. The Experimental Design is not, however. It was not specific and needs to be updated and written in such a manner that it is final-paper ready.

Update 10/22/2012

We are coming along with research slowly but smoothly. We are going to get the dimpling tools tonight so that we can make our Exp. Design specific to exactly what we are going to do and also edit our problem statement with specifics to make it proper.