Math/Stat 571B Spring 2009

Project 1

This is a group project.

Purpose

To design a paper helicopter that will stay in the air the longest. You can use the following materials for each helicopter:

• A sheet of letter size paper, standard weight.
• An arbitrary number of paper clips of various sizes

• A ruler
• A pair of scissors
• A stop watch (or an ordinary watch with a stop watch feature)

The evaluation method

Your design must be clearly described in a short document, so that a 13+ years old child can reproduce your design. The helicopter will be released from a height of 8 feet 10 times The time the helicopter stays in the air will be measured. The average will be the result.

The winner design

The data collected as part of the evaluation will be provided to all groups. The group means will be compared using ANOVA. The winner design should show to be better than other desigs with confidence level = 0.95 and power = 0.8. It will be assumed that a difference of .3 seconds or more is significant.

Grading

An integral part of this project is the documentation of the steps.

• Development of the research hypotheses
• The rationale
• Documentation of the experiments leading to the optimal design
• Inclusion of all experimental data
• Inclusion of all statistical analysis

There will be a 10% point bonus to the group that produces the winning design

Due dates

February 5

Preliminary document describing the research hypothesis and a plan for the entire project.

February 19

Reference design.

February 26

Final revision of all documents.