Science Cones Investigation

How Does The Radius Of A Cone Affect The Speed At Which It Travels?

I will make 5 paper cones one with a radius of 2cm, one with a radius of 4cm, one with 6cm, one with 8cm and a final with cone with a radius of 10cm. I will then drop the cones over a given distance and record the time taken for it to travel through this distance, to see if the radius of a cone affects the speed at which it travels.

To make the paper cones used in this investigation I drew a point in the centre of a piece of paper. From this point I drew another point the same distance away from the initial point as I wanted the radius of the cone to be. I did the same thing below the first point drawn.

So for a cone with a radius of 6cm. from the top of a ruler there should be a point on 0cm, 6cm and 12cm.

I then put the point of the compass on the central point and drew a circle making sure that it went through the other 2 points. To check that this had been done correctly I measured from the centre to the outside of the circle, this should be the length of the radius you wanted.

From the central point of the circle I drew a line out. On this line I placed the protractor and measured the angle of the sector to be cut out. On my cone this is 600. This sector should be cut out from the circle.

To make the cones I then joined both side of the main circle and secured them with sellotape.

Once all of the cones had been made I then went to drop them. I dropped the cones over an indoor balcony. I dropped the cones over a distance of 8.53m.

I dropped the cones down over the 8.53m balcony and there was somebody else down at the bottom with a start, when the cones were dropped from the balcony and stop the stopwatch when the cones hit the floor.

I dropped each cone three times to make sure that my results were as accurate as could be. This also allowed me to get an average time for each cone. I then recorded my results in a table.

To make sure that the results of the investigation were accurate there are a few things that need to be kept the same throughout, these are the variables. In this investigation the variables are the distance to be travelled by the cones, the type/ weight of paper for the cones to be made from and also the angle of the sector to be cut out in the making of the circle.

There is also something you will have to change, this is called the independent variable in this investigation it is the radius of the cone.

There is also something that will change as the independent variable changes (the radius of the cone) this is called the dependent

variable or the outcome variable in this experiment this is the speed at which the cone travels through a given distance (8.53m)

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