Aerodynamics & Hydrodynamics Project Ideas

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You've probably often seen planes flying and boats in the water, but have you really thought about what's involved in their operation? There is a lot of interesting science that goes into how they work. Here are a few of the topics covered in the Project Ideas below to help you investigate the science of air- and watercraft:

Unique flying devices
Shapes of objects and their effect on speed in air and water
How an airplane stays up in the sky
Different factors that affect rocket or boat performance

Project Ideas Difficulty: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Easy (for beginners) Hard

Do you wish that you had duck feet? Aside from being a fun Dr. Seuss story, there is a lot you can learn about hydrodynamics by looking at the feet of birds. How are the feet of birds that swim unique? Find out in this experiment.

Have you ever ridden on a hovercraft? It is like gliding on a cushion of air! Make your own mini hovercraft in this experiment to test how hovercrafts work. Kites have been a source of entertainment for centuries of kids from cultures around the world. In this experiment you will have a chance to build your very own kite, a simple sled kite. Then you will use it to investigate how kites fly. Will you find out the best way to fly your kite? What do whale fins, shark skin, mackerel tails, and golf balls all have in common? Explore the science of hydrodynamics and biomimicry with this fun experiment. What keeps a submarine from spinning out of control? In this science project, you can investigate how submarines use stabilizing fins to move forward. You might even figure out the secrets to maneuvering a submarine! Who'd have thought that drinking milk can lead to a pretty cool boat? Boat design is an important and active area of engineering. In this science fair project, which was inspired by a PBS DragonflyTV episode, you will design and build different kinds of model boats out of milk cartons. Examples of the types of designs you might test include a raft, a catamaran, and a V-shaped hull. Once the model boats are built, you will test key features, such as stability, maneuverability, and their ability to glide. Do you dream about making deep, undersea voyages? Let this project take you 20,000 leagues under the sea! Investigate how submarines dive and surface by changing their buoyancy in this fun project. How does a parachute work? Do bigger parachutes work better than smaller parachutes? Find out in this experiment if the size of the parachute matters. What makes some objects more streamlined than others? Find out which ordinary objects around your house are made to move smoothly through the water in this easy experiment. Which objects will produce the most drag when pulled through the water? Have you ever wondered how a ship made of steel can float? In this project you'll investigate how much weight boat hulls of various shapes and sizes can support without sinking.

A great way to get started in exploring aerodynamics is by building high-performance paper gliders. We're not talking folded pieces of copier paper here. These gliders are built using laminated construction methods, so they look and fly much more like the real thing. The materials are inexpensive, and the building techniques are easy to learn. You can easily turn out several planes, which makes it possible to test the effects of design changes on flight performance.

Have you ever heard the expression, "Well, it's not exactly rocket science…" ? For your science fair project, you can be a rocket scientist. Here's how. This project presents an interesting puzzle. A disk of wood will float face-up, that is, with its circular cross-section parallel to the surface of the water. A long log of wood, however, floats with the circular cross-section perpendicular to the surface of the water. If you think about it, disks and logs are both cylinders. Is there some intermediate length of cylinder that floats with the circular cross-section at a tilted angle? Do an experiment to find out!

Have you ever noticed how some jet planes have small, vertical projections as the tips of the wings? They're called winglets. What are they there for?

The Wright brothers used kites extensively to test their design ideas in the years leading up to their first successful airplane flight. With this science project, you'll learn about kite aerodynamics, and then come up with your own hypothesis about building or flying a kite. You can test your hypothesis two ways: with an online kite simulation program from NASA, and outdoors with the real thing! A great feature of this science project is that it has many possible variations, so you can decide exactly in which direction you want to take it. Looking for an exciting new mode of transportation? In this science fair project, you will build a working hovercraft that will glide over surfaces on a cushion of air. And it's simpler to build than you might think!

Are you good at tossing a frisbee? Isn't it great when you throw a perfect, arcing curve, right on target? If you can do that, you've already trained your arm on the aerodynamics of frisbee flight. Why not treat your brain to some frisbee science with this project?

If you've played catch with both Aerobie flying rings and Frisbees, you know that the rings fly much further than the Frisbees with the same throwing effort. Why is that? Investigate the aerodynamics of flying rings and flying disks and find out! You're used to seeing airplanes in the sky every day, so it's nothing unusual. But if you've ever gotten a close look at big passenger plane, you might have wondered how it manages to get off the ground. In this project you can learn how those big planes fly by building your own wind tunnel and using it to test different wing designs. How does a helicopter generate enough lift to fly? How does a speedboat get moving fast enough to pull someone on water skis? Here's a project on designing propellers to do the job.

Winglets are the short vertical "fins" at the wingtips of some airplanes. Have you ever wondered why they are there? If you have access to a wind tunnel, you can build model airfoils with and without winglets and see for yourself. If you're really ambitious, you can also build your own wind tunnel (see Wind Tunnel Construction Links).

Additional Project Ideas

Note: The following project ideas are abbreviated, without notes to start your background research or a procedure for how to do the experiment. You can identify abbreviated project ideas by the asterisk at the end of the title. If you want a project idea with full instructions, please pick one without an asterisk.

You can make a very simple hovercraft with a stiff, disposable plate—a pie plate should work well—and a balloon. Glue a square of cardboard in the center of the bottom of the plate. Make a small hole through the center of both of these layers. Enlarge the hole slightly with a pencil. Push a balloon through the hole so that the opening is on... You can measure the viscosity of a fluid using a glass tube and a marble with slightly smaller diameter than the tube. Seal one end of the tube. Fill the tube with the fluid to be tested. Drop the marble into to the tube and measure the time it takes to fall a fixed distance. Repeat the measurement several times, and use the average value. How... If you have an air hockey table, you know that the puck floats on a thin cushion of air when the table is turned on. With little friction, the puck can travel very fast. How much lift force is created by the air? Add small amounts of weight to the puck and see when it no longer floats to measure the lift force. How many air holes (on average)... Does your car have a roof rack that you use sometimes (e.g., for skis, or bicycles)? How is your gas mileage affected by the increased drag? Measure the car's average gas mileage with and without the rack. Is there an effect? Is there more of an effect at higher speed? Figure out a way to estimate gas mileage during city driving and during... Fill a jar a little more than half full with fresh water. Make a solution of salt water, and add a drop or two of food coloring to it. Pour the salt water solution into a plastic cup with a small hole in the bottom, and then place the cup in the jar with fresh water. (The only connection between the fresh and salt water should be via the hole in... How much difference does the spiraling motion of a well-thrown football make on the distance of the throw (compared to wobbling, or end-over-end motion of the ball)? Think of a way to reproducibly produce the desired ball motion and launch it with a constant force to find out. (For more information on the physics, see Gay, 2004.) Does the force of drag have an effect on the distance the puck will travel? Think of a way to launch the puck with a reproducible force, and examine the effect of launching the puck in different orientations on the distance it travels. For more information on the physics, see Haché, 2002.

A technique often used in wind tunnels is to introduce smoke in front of the airfoil that is being tested. The smoke comes from regularly-spaced point sources, and the wind flow in the tunnel spreads it out into parallel lines, called streamlines. The streamlines make it possible to visualize the airflow over the airfoil. When the lines continue...

Try different wind turbine/propeller (chord length, pitch) designs by making models from balsa wood. Connect the spinning axle to a DC motor and measure the voltage produced across a resistor to measure power output. Use fan as wind source. (Judge, 2004) Do background research on the Tacoma Narrows Bridge collapse. Here are some references to get you started:

Ketchum, M., 2000. "Mark Ketchum's Bridge Collapse Page," [accessed February 16, 2006] http://www.ketchum.org/bridgecollapse.html.
Doole, S. and A. Champneys, date...

Resources

Sources for Additional Project Ideas

Gay, Timothy, Ph.D., 2005. The Physics of Football. New York: HarperCollins Publishers.
Haché, Alain, 2002. The Physics of Hockey. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press.
Johnson, M.R., 2005. "Flow Dynamics of the Salt Oscillator," California State Science Fair Project Abstract [accessed February 27, 2006] http://www.usc.edu/CSSF/History/2005/Projects/J0112.pdf.
Judge, T.C., 2004. "Testing Turbines for Maximum Power," California State Science Fair Project Abstract [accessed February 27, 2006] http://www.usc.edu/CSSF/History/2004/Projects/J0110.pdf.
Parker, S., 2005. The Science of Air: Projects and Experiments with Air and Flight, Chicago, IL: Heinemann Library.

Materials and Equipment

Wind tunnels are used by aeronautical engineers for testing airplane designs. Here's a plan for a homemade wind tunnel you can build:
Clifford, R.C., 1942. "Home-made Wind Tunnel, part 1" scanned from Air Trails, May, 1942, available at http://www.theplanpage.com/Months/2306/tunnel_files/tunnel.pdf.
Clifford, R.C., 1942. "Home-made Wind Tunnel, part 2" scanned from Air Trails, June, 1942, available at http://www.theplanpage.com/Months/2307/wt_pt2_files/wt_pt2.pdf.
You can find more information on building wind tunnels here:
NASA, date unknown. "NASA Glenn Learning Technologies Project," NASA Glenn Research Center Learning Technologies Project [accessed June 9, 2006] http://www.lerc.nasa.gov/WWW/K-12/windtunnel.html.
The following suggestion is untested, but would make an interesting experiment. If you decide to try it, please let us know what you find (write to us at scibuddy@sciencebuddies.org, and use "Wind Tunnel" in your subject line. Thanks!) If you don't have access to a motor and propeller for the wind source, a possible alternative is a leaf blower (http://www.madsci.org/posts/archives/mar97/856040342.Ph.r.html). You'll need to make some kind of adapter from the outlet tube of the blower to your wind tunnel. You'll definitely want to use the honeycomb material described in the plan to diffuse the air and promote laminar flow. Start at the lowest setting of the leaf blower.

Aerodynamics & Hydrodynamics Project Ideas

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