scientific approach to control axes of motion- lesson 7

10/24/2022

Manna Moment- Self Control

Proverbs 25:28- "A man without self control is like a city broken into and left without walls."

The pioneers of flight before Wilbur and Orville Wright were Sir George Cayley, Otto Lilienthal, Perry Pilcher, Octave Chanute and Samuel Langley. Each of these men were so focused on getting off the ground and moving forward, they hadn't spent near enough time thinking about how to control the aircraft once it was in the air. Lilienthal and Pilcher both died as a result of losing control of their gliders when an unexpected gust of wind caught them.

God's word reminds us of how important self-control is- a man without self control leads to destruction. Part of the fruit of the Spirit is self control. When we accept Jesus Christ as our Savior by repenting of our sins, we are given the Holy Spirit as a counselor and guide. Through the power of the Holy Spirit we can display, by His power, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self control. By the power of the Holy Spirit, we can be in control of our thoughts, words and actions to make our lives worthy of Jesus Christ.

approaching the Problem of flight scientifically

How do you take a BIG question and narrow it down to something smaller and testable?
BIG question: How do we fly?
Wilbur and Orville Wright did some background research to find out who had already been working on the problem and what they had already figured out. Then they took their BIG question and narrowed it down to "What exactly is needed to fly?" In asking this question, Wilbur pinpointed three obstacles in the way of successful human flight.
1. Wing Construction
2. Power needed for thrust
3. Balancing and steering the flying machine after it was up in the air.
Based on these three obstacles, they picked one to start on resulting in a smaller and testable question: How do you control an airplane once it is in the air?

The Scientific Method:
1. Make Observations - Observations can include noticing, looking, measuring, or testing for patterns.
2. Ask Questions- Which questions can be answered with observations, measurements, or tests?
3. Background Research- Use research to find out what has already been investigated.
4. Make a Hypothesis- Choose your testable variable and make a hypothesis.
5. Determine Procedures- What steps do you need to take to control for your specific variables?
6. Collect Data- How accurately can you measure your data?
7. Analyze Data- What does the data mean?
8. Draw Conclusions- Did your results support your hypothesis? What did you learn about your question or hypothesis?

With every aspect involved in the science of flight, the Wright brothers had to continually return to the scientific method for every problem they faced along the path to achieve heavier than air controlled flight.

Axes of motion

Moving around in the air was a completely new idea for people in the late 19th century so the Wright brothers had to use what they knew and apply it to what they didn't know.

The three axes of motion for flight are:

yaw- moving from left to right
pitch- moving up and down
roll- tilts and balances

The Wright brothers had to be resourceful to understand these three axes of motion. To learn about yaw, they learned from navigating boats.
To learn about pitch, they studied how Civil War submarines dove into the water and came up. This is where they learned that the vertical rudder would control yaw while a horizontal rudder would control pitch.
Finally, the Wright brothers were bicycle engineers and when they saw people riding bikes and leaning into a turn, they learned something about what roll would be in the air.

To make this easier for my students, I used a piece of Dry Fom used to place flowers in for arrangements. This is representative of the fuselage of an airplane. I then had them stick in three bamboo skewers to represent each axe of motion. They would label them accordingly. Every time they twisted the 'yaw' skewer, the nose would go left or right. When they held the skewer labeled 'pitch' the nose could go up and down and finally when they held the skewer labeled 'roll' , they could see the plane tilt to the left or right.

air foil investigation

I had my students build an airfoil apparatus to be able to investigate different types materials for airfoils.
All the instructions for this are found on the Airfoil Investigation Guide.

Which material makes the best airfoil? The materials that I gave the students were: index cards, tissue paper, printer paper and aluminum foil.

They were to make the apparatus and then place the different types of airfoils on it. Turn on a hair dryer and see which airfoil experienced the most lift.

steps to making the airfoil apparatus

1. Read the instructions all the way through first.

2. Straighten two large paper clips leaving one end bent in an 'L' shape.

3. After you have cut 3x5 pieces of all the materials that you are wanting to test (index card, aluminum foil, printer paper, tissue paper), fold in half lengthwise leaving a fourth inch and tape.