Niko G.

Week of September 29: This week I started to work on the actual structure of the airfoil. Unfortunately because I rushed a little on folding the top part of it, it creased and bent weirdly. Because of this I had to spend a considerable amount of time working on straightening it out, and in the process of doing so it made it shorter (height wise) than intended so the supports to hold the shape that i made wont fit, meaning I have to redo this process with another foam board another time.

Week of September 21: This week was fairly productive. I was able to test out what I am doing for Dark Matter Day, which is an elastic fabric stretched out over a hula hoop, with a large ball placed in the center, creating an indent. Once that is made and is sagging, multiple smaller and lighter balls are pushed around it so it will spin and eventually gravitate towards the center of the indent/big ball. This week I also experimented with power tools to cut out the rest of my stabilizers for my aerofoil that I will start to make sometime next week. My classmate also taught me how to use swabs and place them inside the incubator to germify

Week of September 14: This week, I actually got to work. I am creating my prototype and entering it relatively blind. Because of my abundance of foam board, I am working on this and experimenting to see what tools I’m going to need to use and what they do to the foam (i.e what kind of knife to use to score the board, then what to use to even it out). I've figured out that using a box cutter to score it is quite efficient, and I want to determine how to mold it next.

Week of September 8th: My hypothesis for this whole project is that the larger airfoil is, the more lift it will create, however it will top out at a lower speed. If the aerofoil is sharper and smaller, it will produce less lift but be able to reach a higher speed and perform better at it. Three questions that I have is that what is the largest an aerofoil can be before it starts producing more drag than lift, how sharp can an aerofoil be before it starts to produce little to no lift, and what is the sweet spot between the two that creates an aerofoil that works well at slow and medium-high speeds. Three places in the world that could be studying the same topic are aeronautical universities, the military, and crazy people at home with the materials needed. Also did some more drawings.