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TITLE
What is the best angle to shoot an elastic band to make it go furthest?
I saw a programme on TV about firing guns from ships and they said they adjusted the angle of the gun to make it fire further. I thought this would be an interesting thing to investigate. Because I cannot fire a gun (obviously) I am going to investigate firing elastic bands.
I think that the bigger the angle the further the elastic band will go. This is because the elastic band will go higher and be in the air longer and that means it will go further.
My biggest problem was how to measure the angle while firing the elastic band. In the end I decided to use the big protractor that my teacher uses on the board. I screwed through a ruler and a wooden block to make the gun to fire the elastic band.
You also have to make sure that you pull the elastic band back the same amount every time. The ruler helps you to do this.
1 board protractor
1 ruler
1 block of wood
1 thick elastic band
1 tape measure
1 table
Find a large empty space where no one will get hit by the elastic band.
Set up a table to rest the gun on.
Set the ruler at 0 degrees and fire the elastic band. I decided to fire it 3 times at each angle to get better results.
Measure how far the elastic band went.
Set the ruler at 10 degrees and fire the elastic band 3 times and measure it.
Keep doing it until you reach 90 degrees.
| degrees | 1st | 2nd | 3rd | median | mean | ||
| 0 | 498 | 480 | 570 | 498 | 516 | ||
| 10 | 636 | 570 | 546 | 570 | 584 | ||
| 20 | 678 | 690 | 870 | 690 | 746 | ||
| 30 | 690 | 840 | 798 | 798 | 776 | ||
| 40 | 849 | 855 | 750 | 849 | BEST | 818 | 2nd |
| 50 | 792 | 846 | 840 | 840 | 2nd | 826 | BEST |
| 60 | 637 | 696 | 639 | 639 | 657 | ||
| 70 | 624 | 540 | 549 | 549 | 571 | ||
| 80 | 315 | 331 | 381 | 331 | 342 | ||
| 90 | backwards | 183 | 60 | 60 | 81 |
CONCLUSION
Although my best elastic band went 870 cms (20 degrees) I think the best angle is between 40 degrees and 50 degrees.
My hypothesis was wrong because one of my elastic bands at 90 degrees went backwards.
I did this investigation indoors. It would not be a good idea to try this outside because of the wind.
It was a good thing that I fired the elastic band 3 times because if I only fired it once, sometimes my results would not be so good.
I should have fired the elastic bands from the floor so that the distance I measured was more accurate because the elastic bands landed on the floor.
I made sure I always pulled the elastic bands back to the end of the ruler but I think it would have been better if I made a sort of trigger.
When one of my shots went backwards I did not know what to do about recording it so I have just counted it as 0.
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