Isabel Wadeson-Lee 12Du

Terminal Velocity Experiment

Aim
To find the relationship between the mass of a stack of paper muffin cups and the terminal velocity it
reaches when it is dropped.
paper
cups

Equipment
Paper muffin cups (you may assume the cups are all identical
to each other), stop watch, metre ruler, electronic balance

metre
ruler

Task/Method
Set up the equipment:

Select a stack of cups. Make sure they are tightly packed. Open the
stack out a bit to increase the surface area presented to the air.

Drop the stack from a height about half a metre more than d. (This
ensures it is travelling at its terminal velocity by the time it reaches the
top of the metre ruler.)

The terminal velocity is found by measuring the time, t, it takes for the
d
paper cups to fall through the distance, d, and then using v .
t

d
bench
top

Make sure you dont alter the shape of the stack when you remove cup(s) to change the mass.
Carry out the experiment and write a report that includes:

Results:
Independent variable: mass.
Dependent variable: velocity.
Controlled variables: surface area and distance.
Maximized accuracy by repeating and averaging time and by taking multiple measurements and
dividing for the mass of each paper muffin cups.

Time
(s)
Distanc
e (m)

Avera
4 ge

1.723

1.6

1.69

1.65

1.62

1.723

1.13

1.34

1.12

1.28

1.723

0.87

0.93

0.97

0.84

1.723

0.75

0.68

0.81

0.81

1.723

0.56

0.63

0.82

0.84

1.64
1.217
5
0.902
5
0.762
5
0.712
5

Velocity
(ms)
1.05061
1.415195
1.909141
2.259672
2.418246

Mass
V
(kg)
(ms)
0.000 1.1037
23
81
0.000 2.0027
46
77
0.000 3.6448
69
2
0.000 5.1061
92
18
0.001 5.8479
50
12

Conclusion:
Y=mx+c, m=0.0002v

Discussion:

g
m because if we rearrange that
k
formula to have m as the subject, m=k/g*v. My findings relate to this because in the conclusion I
reached m=0.0002v, which is the same as m=k/g*v as k/g is the equivalent of the slope of the
graph (0.0002).
I controlled the surface area of the paper muffin cups by stacking them inside one another when the
mass needed to be changed. This was necessary because if the paper muffin cups had different
surface areas, there would be different amounts of air resistance, which would affect the velocity. I
also controlled the distance from where the paper muffin cups were dropped to ensure they had
reached terminal velocity by the time we started timing.
For the accuracy improving techniques I used repeating and averaging, and taking multiple
measurements and dividing for the mass of each paper muffin cup. I used repeating and averaging
because this made the measurement more accurate and closer to the true value, and it also meant
that any extreme values did not affect the results. I took multiple measurements and divided by the
number of paper muffin cups to get the mass, as it was more accurate because it meant there were
more significant figures in the end answer.
There was a limit to the range of values I chose for mass, because after 0.00150kg (5 paper muffin
cups stacked), the terminal velocity became too great to accurately measure the time it took to travel
the distance.

The findings of my investigation relate to physics theory that v 2