IB Physics HL Extended Essay on Paper Airplanes

IB Physics Higher Level May 2022 Extended Essay:

3995 words excluding the appendix

43 pages including 1 cover page and 22 appendix pages (mostly raw data)

The contents page can be found in the screenshots.

For students working on their sciences extended essays that need examples of:

• Formatting and structuring content
• Using tables and graphs to present data 
• Using diagrams to illustrate experiment setups
• Processing data and connecting your findings to theory
• Using graphs and illustrations to visually represent your conclusions

Teachers are also welcome to use it as samples of what students could do with their extended essays!

Abstract: 

This paper aims to compare different paper airplane designs to find out why the world record airplane for the longest distance remains undefeated to this day. Using footage taken from the side profile of flights, the trajectory is modeled to track how the variables change. Just as conventional theories for lift would suggest, the results indicate a linear relationship between the lift force and the velocity squared. However, due to the physical limitations of the material, the wings can only produce lift proportionally to v^2 until they deform and the lift becomes somewhat unpredictable. The relationship between lift and v^2 is further analyzed to find parameters like the lift coefficient, max lift, and optimal velocity of each design. Comparing these results show that the record-holding plane has the best balance between efficiency and structural integrity. It can maintain an efficient lift output and remains to do so under high velocities, making it fly the furthest consistently.