Science Fair Project

This week we spent quite a bit of time getting Taylei ready for her school science fair.  Her dad has been amazingly great helping her get it ready.  A month or so ago she had to decide a question and then determine her hypothesis.  Her question: What basic shape (circle, triangle, square or rectangle) would work best for a parachute?  Her hypothesis:  The rectangle will fall the slowest because that is what she sees hang gliders use.

Her dad helped her cut the shapes so they would all have the same square area.  They were supposed to drop the shapes from the roof but it was a really blustery day so they used our new deck instead.  They dropped the shapes three times to confirm the data and every time the results were the same.

See how they fall . . .

Her hypothesis ended up being incorrect but she determined this was because the circle had the most effective surface area . . . less edges.  Her board turned into a family project -- this is when my scrapbook supplies come in real handy.  It turned out really good.

She presented it to her class on Tuesday while I was there volunteering and did a really good job.  Her class was really impressed with her project.

The official school science fair was on Friday.  They were judged in the morning and then it was open to the school and families in the afternoon.  I thought it went to the end of school and so we showed up with 30 minutes left, just as they were tearing everything down.  Taylei actually won an award but she wouldn't smile because she was so disappointed that we had missed it.  Andy, my mom and dad, uncle Paul, Kyler and I all showed up ten minutes too late - had we known we would have been their earlier . . . Oops!