Science fair project ideas – Quick and easy project #1 part 1 - Parachutes

When you begin thinking about the science fair, the first thing you will need to do is come up with your topic. There are tons of science fair project ideas to choose from, but in this article I’m going to discuss a project about parachutes. Specifically, does size matter when it comes to parachutes?

 There are no prerequisites for this project, and it should be easy to complete. You don’t have to spend a whole lot of time on it either, like you do with some science fair project ideas. You can expect to spend about a day or two on the experiment.

 So let’s talk a little bit about parachutes. To skydive, you ride up in an airplane to your jumping altitude, jump out of the plane, soar toward to ground and then pull open a parachute to float to the earth in safety. The purpose of the parachute is to slow down the fall so the skydiver can approach landing safely and not too fast. But how exactly does a parachute work?

 When a skydiver is in a free fall, gravity pulls them toward the ground. Gravity has a lot of force and objects falling, including humans, can get going extremely fast. The parachute creates drag and slows the falling person down using air resistance. Air fills the parachute and causes it to rise against the fall which creates an opposing force to the gravity, making the skydiver’s trip much slower. What’s really cool about this is that as the skydiver descends toward the ground, these “push and pull” forces are almost balanced! The resistance force created by the parachute is just less than what force is created by gravity, allowing the skydiver a slow and safe descent to earth.  

This is why I think studying parachutes is one of the cooler science fair project ideas to do.

 This experiment will test whether the size of parachute is important and if it affects the speed of the fall. You will make a series of parachutes from small to large. Then you will test how fast they fall from the same height. Will the smaller parachutes fall more quickly than the larger parachutes? 

Before you begin experimenting, make sure you understand the following things: resistance of air, load, surface area, parachute, how drag is created and the basics about gravity.  

Some questions you might ask are:

•    Why does a parachute work the way it does?

•    Does the size of the parachute make a difference? 

•    If you increase the diameter of a parachute, will it become larger?

 In the next section, I’ll go over the materials you will need, as well as suggestions for the experimental procedures.  This will take you into the core of the project and show you some of the steps involved in making the parachutes and testing them.

 Studying parachutes will be lots of fun. You’ll see!

Before you continue, I always suggest downloading a free copy of Easy Steps to Award-Winning Science Fair Projects

When you're ready, continue to part 2 of this science project.