We found that the graph of our data formed a parabolic curve, which is to be expected. Our peak range seemed to be around 30 degrees, instead of 45 degrees. The slope of graph, at either end, doesn’t seem to be quite even. It seems steeper at lower angles, meaning that at the beginning the more you increased the angle the more you increased your range, and at higher angles the range increases less with higher angles.
The table ends at 50 degrees because at that point the paintballs were not loading properly and began to jam in the barrel, furthermore we had already lost range and we knew that it would only decrease more.
Error Analysis
We incurred many snags along our experiment. Our gun had begun to jam due to improper loading,
when it was about 50 degrees. At one point one of the supports for our platform had ripped out of
the base, so we had to level it manually, this could have caused error in the angle. Multiple people
changed the angle of the platform so they could have in consistently changed the angle. When we measured
the distance our measuring device was askew, note the curve in the tape (fig.2), it did remain a constant
error which is sort of nice. Wind could have at some point set one ball off course. Early on in our
experiment a ball exploded in the barrel which could have caused some friction. Things we could improve on;
a more controlled environment (indoors perhaps?) and a better way to differentiate new points and already recorded
points. A stronger platform and more precise measuring of the angle and distance would provide better data.
Conclusion
Our hypothesis was incorrect, in fact it was quite the opposite we found that the best angle was less than 45, which is known to be the best in a frictionless environment. We found the best angle to fire our paintball gun to achieve maximum range was 30 degrees. We feel this was because the smaller the angle the less time it would spend in the air for air friction to apply. 30 degrees seems to be a happy medium where the least air friction is applied to mach the gravity and give you the best range
Back