🪁 Kite tails and steady flying: the whole packet

🪁 Kite tails and steady flying · 3rd–8th grade · 1 day of testing · free · 60 minutes a sitting

My days, if the fair is 14 days away

Count back from your fair day and write in each date. Fewer days than this? The jobs share days, in this order; nothing is skipped.

Dates from my teacher

• My question is due
• Testing starts
• My results table and graph are due
• My board is due

In this packet

1. 🗓️ My project plan
2. 💭 My hypothesis
3. 🧺 Change, measure, keep the same
4. 🪜 My steps
5. 📊 My results
6. 📓 My logbook
7. ✅ My conclusion
8. ✂️ Board titles to cut out
9. 🏅 The judge's questions and my certificate

If I change how long the kite's tail is, then how many times the kite spins or dives in 30 seconds will ________________, because _____________________________________________

What I think will happen, in my own words:

4 levels × 3 tries at each = 12 tries in all. If anything you keep the same changes, you won't know which change made the difference.

What I need

• 📄 Paper: 1 sheet
• 🥤 Straws: 2
• 🧵 String or yarn: about 6 m
• 🛍️ Plastic bags: 1, cut into strips for tails
• 📏 A tape measure, or a long ruler
• ⏱️ A stopwatch or a kitchen timer
• ✂️ Kid scissors
• 🩹 Tape

Be safe: 🌳 Outside

1. Lay a sheet of paper tall, and tape a straw down it 4 cm in from each long edge.
2. Tape the ends of a 60 cm string to the two side edges, a third of the way down.
3. Tie your long flying string to the middle of that short string.
4. Cut strips from a plastic bag and tape them end to end into tails 50, 100 and 150 cm long.
5. Go to an open field, far from power lines, trees and roads, and let out 5 m of string.
6. Fly it with no tail, walking steadily into the breeze for 30 seconds.
7. A helper times it and counts every spin or dive at the ground, and you write it down.
8. Fly it two more times with no tail.
9. Tape on the 50 cm tail and fly it three times, then the 100 cm and 150 cm tails.
10. Find the mean for each tail and draw a line graph.

Write each number in your results table the moment you measure it.

I changed: Tail length   I measured: how many times the kite spins or dives in 30 seconds (spins and dives)

MY GRAPH (a line graph: tail length along the bottom, spins and dives up the side)

What I noticed: ______________________________________________

Write something every day you work on it, even the days you only gather things. More days? The three-page logbook prints from peabody.kids/science-fair/templates/logbook.

My hypothesis was ☐ right ☐ partly right ☐ not right.

I know because my numbers show:

What surprised me, or what might have gone wrong (7th and up):

Next time I would test:

Idea: Change a second thing: make every tail from paper strips and from plastic strips, and draw a line for each.

1. What made you want to ask this question? Say something like: I wanted to know: does a longer tail keep a kite steadier?
2. What did you think would happen, and why? Say something like: I thought changing how long the kite's tail is would change how many times the kite spins or dives in 30 seconds, and I wrote down why.
3. What did you change, and what did you measure? Say something like: I changed how long the kite's tail is (No tail, 50 cm, 100 cm, 150 cm) and measured how many times the kite spins or dives in 30 seconds in spins and dives.
4. What did you keep the same, and why does that matter? Say something like: I kept the same kite and the same 5 m of flying string the same, so only how long the kite's tail is was different.
5. How many times did you test it? Say something like: 3 times at each of my 4 levels, and I found the middle number.
6. What did you find out? Show me in your numbers. Say something like: Look at my table: No tail and 150 cm gave different numbers, and here's the pattern.
7. Was your hypothesis right? How do you know? Say something like: My numbers show whether I was right, partly right or not, and I can show you where.
8. Did anything go wrong, or surprise you? Say something like: One try was odd, so I did it again and wrote it in my logbook.
9. If you did it again, what would you change or test next? Say something like: I'd change a second thing: make every tail from paper strips and from plastic strips, and draw a line for each.