AP Physics Students Make Hovercrafts

In our AP Physics class, we were tasked with the assignment to construct a small hovercraft capable of going across a classroom on its own.  We could only use computer fans and motors to keep the vehicle hovering.  The hovercraft needed to go straight while hovering, and had to be able to race with the hovercrafts of the rest of the class.  My hovercraft had a large Styrofoam [piece], while others used a garbage bag for a skirt in order to allow it to hover.  One of the biggest problems that we all encountered in the building process was finding a way to cancel out the rotational inertia of the fan that was allowing our projects to hover.  The fan would make the hovercraft spin around and it was hard to make it go in one direction.  Some people in the class used two fans at the end to push it, or angled [their] back fan to cancel out the central fan, while others used a motor and a regular fan to push it.  In the end, Steven Verovsky’s hovercraft narrowly beat out Mr. Whitfield’s fan to win the AP Physics championship.  Naturally, my fan broke before the race and one of Alex Verovsky’s fans blew out after one race.

The Race Participants

(Mr. Whitfield, Alex Verovsky, Daniel Solomon, Steven Verovsky)

~Daniel Solomon

Class of 2011