What Materials Reduce The Speed of Wifi Signals?

Question: What Materials Keep Out Wifi Signals?

Hypothesis: I predict that the wood will keep the wifi signal out the best. I predict this because walls are made out of this material, and walls tend to keep out wifi.

Abstract:

Which Materials Reduce The Speed of Wifi Signals?

Ryder Fuscellaro

For my science fair project I wanted to discover what materials reduce the speed of wifi signals. Everyone has been in a position where they are sitting at home, and suddenly their electronic device loses connection. Even in the school cafeteria the wifi cuts out. Therefore I asked myself why. I wanted to test what was stopping the wifi from connecting to a device. My hypothesis was that a wooden material would slow the signal by the greatest percentage because most houses are made of wood. This could have also been true because of the fact that most walls have some wood in them.

To complete my experiment the first thing I did was create boxes of different materials I chose wood, foam, cardboard, sheetrock, and plexiglass. Next, I sat at the kitchen counter and used a program called PRTG to measure the amount of time it took the wifi signal to get to my computer. To do this, I kept my laptop out of a box, for three minutes. Then, I put my laptop in a box for three minutes. I averaged up all of the three minutes for both the outside the box and the control (outside the box), and subtracted the average from out of a box minus the average from in a box. The lower the average, the better it was at reducing the speed of the signal.

My information was actually quite surprising. My unit of measure was msec or one thousandth of a second. My data was as followed; foam was 46.7 msec, wood was 52.7 msec, cardboard was 80 msec, plexiglass was 97 msec, and sheetrock was 31 msec. Using this data Is I discovered that sheetrock slowed the signal from reaching my devices for the largest period of time.

My project taught me that sheetrock does the best job at keeping out wifi signals. My hypothesis was incorrect because I thought that wood would keep out the wifi signal the best. Wood came in third place. I could have had cleaner tests if I had boxes that were sealed completely. I did not have access to a super sealant I believe that my experiment was accurate though because my results made logical sense.

Conclusion:

My conclusions showed me that sheetrock reduced the speed of the wifi signal by the greatest amount. My data proved my hypothesis wrong since I thought wood would reduce the speed by the greatest amount. My experiment taught me that I can’t complain that the wifi is bad, and blame it on Comcast, as it isn’t there fault. It seems to be the area I decide to use my computer in. I believe my experiment was a success I made sure everyone using the wifi in our home had their devices turned off. I also made sure that my computer was on, and the data was being collected accurately. If I were to repeat this experiment again, I would have made the boxes with a better seal. I had a few small gaps in some of my boxes, which could have affected my experiment and the collected data.

Procedure:

• 1. Build the boxes of each material.

  2. Download the PRTG program from their website

  3. Test with your laptop outside of the box for 3 minutes. Record data.

  4. Test with your laptop inside of the box for 3 minutes. Record Data.

1. Repeat steps 3-4 for all materials.

Which Materials Block Out Wifi Signals?