FIGHTING GRAVITY

In this three part project fusing physics and art, students built kites, hot air balloons and flying objects. For kites, students explored the forces of lift and drag to design kites that met their goals such as speed, ease of management or stability as well as calculated the minimum wind speed required for their kites to fly. For hot air balloons, students considered concepts of buoyancy and balance to build balloons as well as calculated the minimum temperature increase needed inside their balloons for them to rise. For flying objects, students choose what they wanted to build and described how it flew, or resisted gravity, using physics. Throughout the project, students documented their process using journals and summarized their findings by producing a poster at the end of each build.This project was conducted with physics teacher Andrew Gloag and art teacher Jeff Robin.