MAX Web Activity Overview - Part I NASA scientists and pilots constantly experiment with test designs and materials to make the best airplanes. They work to improve safety, to increase performance, and to reduce costs. Their experiments are done over long periods of time and they change their experiments by varying the conditions. You will have an opportunity to test two of the factors that affect flight: wing and engine sizes. Your mission is to design and build an unpiloted Explorer that will be used on the planet Mars. You may choose to vary the wing size or the engine size to obtain the best vehicle that will carry life probes to test for signs of life on the surface. Information is provided in the MAX Explorer simulation about the lift, drag, thrust, and weight of the vehicles that you construct. Scientists must carefully design controlled experiments to find the effects of changing one factor (variable) at a time. The first flight factor on the simulation is wing size. Choose the smallest wing and record the amount of drag (air resistance or friction) in the grid below. Try the next larger wing and record the drag. Continue for each of the wing sizes. Be sure not to add any engines now. We are only testing the wing size!   Table A. Wing Size Drag Smallest   Small   Medium   Large   Largest   1. How does the size of the wing affect drag (air resistance) ?     Now, test the different wing sizes again and record the amount of lift for each size. Remember, we aren’t ready to test the engine factors yet! Table B. Wing Size Lift Smallest   Small   Medium   Large   Largest     2. How does the size of the wing affect the lift on the vehicle?     Next, select one wing size to work with and collect data on the weight of each engine. Record your findings in Data Table C below.   3. Explain why it wouldn’t be a fair test if we kept trying different size wings with different size engines when we are collecting information on weight.             Table C. Engine Size Weight Smallest   Small   Medium   Large   Largest     4. How does the engine size affect the weight of the vehicle?     Select one wing size and collect data on the thrust of each engine. Record your findings in Data Table D below. Table D.  Engine Size Thrust Smallest   Small   Medium   Large   Largest     5. How does the engine size affect the thrust (power)? Next

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