Today I went to the Maritime Museum in Falmouth and used some of the equipment there to do an experiment. My aim was to find out how the shape of a boat affects its speed while it travels through the water.
Method/Controls/Apparatus
I had two different shaped boats, three plastic fins, a pool of water and a weighted line. I timed my two boats with and without fins while they traveled through the water from one end of the pool to the other. We did three readings for each run, then calculated the mean average. The reason for using an average was to reduce the effect of human error in the timing. For every run the setup was the same so the only thing that changed was the shape of the boat and the fins.
Predictions
Boat A was wider and heavier than boat B, which was more pointed and streamlined. I thought that boat B would go faster than boat A because it had more of a point which meant it has less friction and less drag. I also thought that the fins would make the boats go slower through the water.
Results
Conclusion
The results show that boat B was faster than boat A as predicted and the result also showed that the fins slowed the boats down. This is because boat A was less aerodynamic and more heavy and the fins created more drag and made the boats heavier.
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