Toy Helicopters

Teri Strugnell, Ben Brumpton and Braden Mulholland

St George State High School

An experiment was conducted to determine which material and design created the best collapsible toy helicopter. To do so, material; wing size; and wing shape were altered, and each was dropped from a constant height of 2m in constant conditions. A total of 50 trials were conducted to ensure results were accurate and reliable.

Processed Data Variables Min Q1 Med Q3 Max IQR Rang

eMean Mode Standard 

DeviationMax Outlier

Min Outlier

Paper 1.08 1.18 1.28 1.36 1.73 0.18 0.65 1.2846 1.18, 1.28 0.13795 1.63 0.91

Cardboard 0.56 0.76 0.865 0.93 1.3 0.17 0.74 0.8568 0.85, 0.91 0.1299 1.185 0.505

Plastic 0.53 0.64 0.72 0.8 1.05 0.16 0.52 0.7314 0.73 0.121 1.04 0.4

Extend 5cm 1.54 1.8 1.98 2.18 2.65 0.38 1.11 2.0136 1.76, 1.8, 2.13

0.24969 1.23 2.75

Extend 10cm

0.86 1.15 1.23 1.38 1.63 0.23 0.77 1.25 1.18, 1.33, 1.38

0.161 1.725 0.805

Width 7cm 1 1.46 1.565 1.68 2.35 0.22 1.35 1.563 1.46, 1.41, 1.43, 1.6, 1.61, 1.73

0.2188 2.01 1.13

Width 3cm 0.59 1.06 1.15 1.27 1.41 0.21 0.82 1.134 1.06, 1.15, 1.28

0.1527 1.585 0.745

Zig-Zag 0.96 1.16 1.23 1.33 1.9 0.17 0.94 1.2582 1.21 0.1587 1.585 0.905

Box plots were constructed for the top five models, to determine if there were any significant differences between times. This demonstrates the majority of the data for the length of 11.5cm variable lies greater than the rest.

1.53 1.59 1.65 1.71 1.77 1.83 1.89 1.95 2.01 2.07 2.13 2.19 2.25 2.31 2.37 2.43 2.49 2.55 2.610

0.5

1

1.5

2

2.5

3

3.5

11.5cm Length Histogram

Time (s)

Frequency

A histogram was then created to interpret the spread of the data for the “best design”. It shows the times are evenly distributed.

The data shows that the best collapsible toy helicopter has a wing length of 11.5cm, as when dropped it took the longest time to float to the ground. Extensions on this data could be testing diverse variables, however the number of trials and the number of variables are practical, given time restraints, and indicative of accurate results.