Dandelion Seed Dispersal Race (2D)

This 2D side-view simulator races two dandelion seeds of the same mass: one keeps its fluffy parachute-like pappus, the other has had it stripped away. A quadratic-drag physics model gives the parachute seed the same slow terminal fall speed real pappus seeds show (roughly 0.3–0.5 m/s), while the bare seed free-falls almost unopposed. Set the wind speed and release both seeds together to watch how many more seconds aloft — and how much farther downwind — the parachute buys, with live readouts of fall time, distance traveled, and the resulting distance ratio between the two.