In Adventures in Skydiving you can read about how people safely enjoy jumping out of airplanes with parachutes that bring them slowly to the ground. How good a parachute can you create?

	Specifications of the Official SEED Parachute Weight: Outside diameter: 35mm Inside diameter: 15mm Thickness: 3mm Mass: 20g (+/- 5%)

Your challenge is to design and build a parachute that will bring a specified object down to the ground as slowly as possible. You can use any materials for the parachute and the design is completely up to you.

Contest rules and guidelines:

• You must use an Official SEED Parachute Weight. The specifications are given below. If you wish we can send you one.*
• You may use any materials you wish for your parachute.
• The parachute may be any shape or size, but it may not have a mass greater than that of the Official SEED Parachute Weight
• Test your parachute in still air. An indoor space is best.
• You may drop the parachute from any height as long as it is one meter or more above the floor.
• You will need an accurate stopwatch to time the descent.

Testing and reporting

1. Measure and record the height above the floor that you are using for the drops.
2. Drop the parachute ten times in a row and record the time of descent for each trial. The Official SEED Parachute Weight, not the top or other part of the parachute, should be at the height that you specify at the beginning of each drop.
3. Report the time of each of the ten descents and compute the average time and average rate of descent for all ten drops.
4. Provide descriptions and diagrams of your parachute that are sufficiently detailed and clear so as to allow others to replicate and test your design.
5. Conduct your tests under adult supervision and observe proper safety precautions

Publication on the SEED Web Site

We will publish your results on the SEED Web Site provided that they follow the procedures listed above and are presented in a clear manner. You may send us your report in the form of Web pages, word processor files, or even on paper.

* Send your request for an Official SEED Parachute Weight, and reports of your results to:

SEED Parachute Contest
Schlumberger Limited
7 Times Square, Suite 4301
New York, NY 10036
USA

Reports, including images, may be sent as email attachments.

If you have any questions about contest rules or about parachute design you can Ask and Expert, but you might want to look at our results first.

Our Results We dropped our parachute with the Official SEED Parachute Weight from an altitude of 2 meters. Here are our results: Drop number Time in seconds 1 0.93 2 1.00 3 0.96 4 0.90 5 0.87 6 0.78 7 0.96 8 0.90 9 0.93 10 0.93 Average time    0.92 s Average rate of descent    2.17 m/s Can your parachute bring the Official SEED Parachute Weight down more slowly than 2.17 meters per second? Give it a try and send us your results. PDF Version of this Engineering Challenge

Our parachute is made from a cotton handkerchief with cotton string attached to it with cellophane tape. Instructions on how to build it are in Make a Parachute on the SEED web site.