In this project we had to create our own wings and test them. It were about understanding the principle of Bernoulli and what it effects in our live.
In the beginning we had to think about a general design; how the shape of the wing should be and what reasons are there to use or not to use different design features that could influence the wing in both ways. While this we got the idea to use winglets.
First we didn't really know how, but soon we got the idea to just attach aluminium from a pop can to the sides. It tool us several hours to cut and attach them, but finally we had it and it worked. Also it worked very well, better than we thought in the beginning. In the recorded data you can see that they increased the lift by up to 50%.
After we then finished the engineering it got time to write the essay. That was the harder part for me, because English is my second language. But in the end this problem was smaller then I expected.
In the essay we had to write about Daniel Bernoulli and his life, his principle in special and how it takes place in our daily life, the lift equation, how airflow influences the lift, and finally about our wings.
The text about Bernoulli took some time. Writing about others people or my life is not my strength, but in the end I thing we got something acceptable.
His principle then was more interesting. Also it was complicated and I didn't get the formula the first time, I got into it and I think I understood it. The hardest part to understand was for me the difference between compressible and in-compressible fluids, because it were not only that they were using in the texts about it very high English, it is also not my first language. But I got through it, with a dictionary.
The most interesting part was when we had to give examples where Bernoulli"s Principle takes place in our daily life. Before we started to work on it I knew about wings and sailing, so I were really impressed were it takes place. (more info)
After this for me the most difficult part was done. The rest were just writing down our thoughts and observations.
Also I got in this project a better understanding of how Bernoulli's principle works, that wasn't the most important thing for me in this project. It was more that with all this daily life applications of Bernoulli's principle it has shown me that physical principles aren't only taking place in the obvious thing, but everywhere around us in the little things. It has drawn a line for me from all these formulas I learned in physics to my daily life.
Then on all my researches for Bernoulli and flying I didn't only found people telling me how it works I also found people telling me it doesn't works this way, or it doesn't work just because of Bernoulli. So it needs also Newtons third law of motion and other effects to make a plane fly.
