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Passive Helicopter DropBrought to you byThe University of VermontCollege of Engineering and Mathematical SciencesPassive Helicopter ChallengeNASA is planning a series of probes to the hundreds of nearby planets that are currently being discovered both in our solar system and orbiting nearby stars. The goal of these probes is to slowly drop through the atmosphere and collect data that can be communicated back to the mother ship for communication with to earth. With advances in miniaturization of instrumentation, the atmospheric temperature, pressure and composition can be measured with a probe the size and mass of a penny.Your job is to design and build a passive helicopter that will fall as slowly as possible through the air. Helicopter must spin five times with the penny payload around a central axis before hitting the ground. The use of "lighter than air" components is not allowed. No hydrogen or helium please! The helicopter must rotate five full revolutions around a vertical axis that is centered inside its body area. On the day of the challenge the devices will be carried to the top of a ladder by our official testing personal. Once at the top they will be dropped and the time to reach the floor measured. The slowest eight will then proceed to the finals. These will be dropped two at a time in single round elimination to determine the overall best device. The helicopters will be either dropped by hand or may be placed on two meter sticks held away from the drop ramp. Either way the devices will need to self rotate. The Vermont Air Guard droppers will not spin them. Students will not be dropping their own devices. |