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In honor of the Wright Brothers, NASA Connect traveled south to Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina to conduct today's classroom activity.

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Hi! We're from First White Middle School in Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina.

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NASA Connect asked us to show you how to do this show's classroom activity. It's called...

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What a Drag!

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This activity has three parts.

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In part one, you'll learn how shape affects drag.

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In part two, you'll learn how surface area affects drag.

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And in part three, you'll apply what you've learned from parts one and two to determine the object with the least amount of drag.

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Make sure your teacher has a lesson guide for this program. All the steps and materials are in it.

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Before starting the experiment, construct your drag apparatus.

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Then discuss these questions.

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What is drag?

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How would shape affect drag?

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What are some direct and indirect negative effects of drag on a vehicle?

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Now, let's test these four shapes for drag.

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First, verify that each of the shapes has the same amount of frontal surface area and record your information in the data sheet.

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Next, place two shapes on the drag apparatus like this.

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Turn the fan on low.

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Which shape moves closer to the fan?

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That's the one with the least amount of drag.

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Record your observations and repeat these steps using different combinations of the shapes.

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Look at your data.

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Which shape had the least amount of drag?

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Does shape affect drag?

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Why or why not?

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What other variables could have affected the outcome of the experiment?

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Thanks, Debbie. Nice job, guys.

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Take five, because we'll be back a little later to continue this activity.

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But first, let's head to NASA Langley to see how engineers there are using algebra to solve problems with drag.

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They use a wind tunnel instead of a box fan to test models with different shapes.