LSA E Mech 2017-18

Whats the best way to spend a snow day? Of course throwing snowballs using the perfect freshly- fallen 14 inches of snow we got. I thought it would be a great idea to analyse the physics in motion of throwing a snowball. Snowball fights, such a classic way to have fun in the show, can show us how physics is at every corner in our daily lives. Now, Bella doesn't have the best arm in the world, but her soft toss of a snowball was perfect to analyse.  After review of this video, we came up with the interesting idea to plug it into Logger Pro, plot points, and analyze the graph resulting. After toying around with some of the functions and different kind of graphs we could conjure, we figured a simple distance vs. time graph with an integral captured the motion of Bella's speed ball. By finding the integral of my x distance vs time graph, Bella and I were able to determine the velocity at which she tossed the snowball. After analysis, she threw the snowball at 1.72 m

I have a weak arm. This is usually no problem to my everyday life but when it comes to wintertime antics this is truly my downfall. As pesky older brothers notoriously do, Dino thought it would be fun to initiate a wholesome snowball fight in the freshly fallen, perfect-for-snowball snow. Like the devious conniver he is, Dino was hidden behind a tree pictured off camera and proceeded to peg me with snowballs. Eventually, I mustered up enough courage to defend myself, and to my luck, my mother caught this on camera. The following video looked like this:      Like I said. Weak arm. After review of this video, I came up with the interesting idea to plug it into Logger Pro, plot points, and analyze the graph resulting. After toying around with some of the functions and different kind of graphs I could conjure, I figured a simple distance vs. time graph with an integral captured the motion of my stellar toss.  y distance vs time x distance vs time By finding the int

The sport of track and field, regardless of whether it is inside or outside, consists of three generally accepted disciplines, sprinting, distance and throwing. Sprinters in particular are attempting to go as fast as possible over short distances and due to this the shape of a track affects these athletes the most. A standard track compliant to International Association of Athletics Federations regulations will consist of a rectangle with a semi circle at each end (as seen below).  The straight-aways on a track are 84.39 meters long while the semi-circles have a radius of 36.5 meters making each semi circle have a circumference of 114.7 meters roughly equaling a distance of 400 meters. For very short sprint events like the 100 meters, the entire race is contained to one straightway making it very easy for these sprinters to hit their max speed. Put the same sprinters into a longer race like the 200 meters or 400 meters, and those sprinters run slower not just because of the longer dist

During my Christmas vacation, I received a box of golf balls from my uncle.  Due to the winter weather, it is not a great time to be golfing, but I still incorporated the golf balls into this forces equation.  I attached a rope to one end of a flat piece of cardboard, placed the box of golf balls on top, then pulled! I then used the logger pro program to find the acceleration of the box, which was 2m/s^2; found the mass of the box by converting from pounds to kilograms, it was 3kg; and used a protractor to find the angle that the rope was being pulled at, which was 30.  My goal of this was to calculate to coefficient of friction of the box.  The first step in doing this was a free body diagram. After, I needed to do my net force equations, then solve for the coefficient of friction, which was 0.204N.

Ice Skating is something I love doing even though I'm terrible at it. I can barely go straight and can NOT stop to save my life. My friends and I all went over break and it was so much fun. We did different things so in the end we picked how we wanted to apply it to physics. When we got there, we realized that no one could skate in a perfect circle.  Here is a video of Courtney attempting to do it:  We then decided to ask this boy who looked like he knew what he was doing. I'm assuming he played hockey.  Here  is what I did to find the centripetal acceleration:  He circled around the bottom left circle which has a radius of 4.572m which I got from converting 15ft into m. 1 rev took 7 seconds which I found from watching the video and calculating how long it took to make a complete circle.  V= 2π r / 7  V =(  2π (4.572) ) / 7  V = 4.104 a c  = v^2 / r  a c  = (4.104^2) / (4.572 )  a c  = 3.68 Here are some

Since this blog was about a winter activity, the first thing that came to my mind was sledding. Sledding is always fun whether you are by yourself or with a group of friends, and it is a very common activity people do in the winter. So, for my blog, I decided I would calculate my little brother's speed while sledding down the hill in our backyard.  In order to calculate the speed of my little brother on his sled, I first had to put two rulers in the snow for the distance traveled that I was going to calculate. I placed the two rulers 191 inches apart (5 feet, 11 inches) and moved on to the next step. The next step was to get my little brother ready to sled down our hill. I made sure he lined up so he wouldn't hit the rulers when he sled down the hill, and then he stood against the side of our house so he could get a running start. Then I stood as far back as I needed to and I recorded him going down our hill. After we finished sledding, I went inside to do the technolo

Over winter break a few friends and I decided it would be a fun idea to try to go play ice hockey on the nearby lake.  With the low temperatures the lake quickly froze over to the point where people could skate on it safely.  We actually found some other people on the lake who had the same idea.  It ended up being a lot of fun.      Hitting a hockey puck from an angle and "scooping it up" results in the puck going up in the as opposed to just sliding across the ice.  With how much force does someone have to hit the puck at angle theta to make the puck lost contact with the ground?  Start with a picture of the problem and also a Free Body Diagram.  Then do the net force equations and solve for force using the net force of the Y direction.  M = 0.17, G = 9.8, and Normal force is 0 because we are looking at the moment that the puck leaves the ground. Plug in different values for theta and find corresponding Force values (in Newtons). I was thinking

When I heard a blizzard was barreling along the country towards New England and the announcement was made that there would be no school on Thursday, it is safe to say that fort building was not in my future plans. After several trips outside on Thursday and Friday to shovel snow off the driveway, all of the stairs, all of the paths, and the back deck, I was not looking forward to spending more time outside in the biting cold to create an elaborate snow structure. Off and on over the weekend, I searched for a possible solution to my dilemma until I came across an image of a structure typically taught in the Boy Scouts, the mighty tree pit, which takes advantage of the lesser amount of snow below a evergreen tree due to the needles stopping the vast majority of the snow coming down.These same tree wells that are used to create a snow shelter that can save a life are also a major danger to skiers and snowboarders on glades as they can slide into these wells which can be quite deep and dis

The winter storm that we received several days ago brought about a large amount of snow, in which I decided to make a snow fort.  I began by trying to find a mound of snow that was already in my yard.  The mound that I found was made by a combination of snow plowed off the road, and snow shoveled off my driveway.  As I do not have any trees in my yard, using branches or leaves as a resource for the build was difficult.  I instead decided to make it completely out of snow.  To allow for a solid floor, I made sure to go completely down to the grass.  The start of the hole was the easy part, as I was able to use a shovel from my garage to make it wide enough, and it was quick and efficient.  However, as I dug deeper into the mound, I could no longer use the shovel as it did not reach the back of hole.  I instead used my hands and feet to hollow out the hole and make it big enough to fit me inside.   

I decided it would be easiest to build my fort by using some of the piles of snow that were produced by the plow.  The snow was perfectly dense to build with after sitting for a few days.  I found a suitable pile right near my house and began construction by simply digging straight into it. I half expected it to collapse as I was digging but it managed to hold its own weight.  It was easy to get depth into the back of the fort but it was a little difficult raising the ceiling.  I ended up doing a lot of scraping to the ceiling of the fort trying to get loose snow to fall. Eventually, there was enough space to crawl in backward and lay down.  It actually felt bigger than I expected on the inside and I had enough space to fully extend my legs.  It was large enough to fit me and I feel like it could have sustained me at a livable temperature for quite some time.  Once it was finished I added some old garland for decoration. Once it was finished I a

With our recent snow day it was there perfect chance to go outside and build a snow fort! At such frigid temperatures it is very important to maintain a suitable temperature safe to stay in. This was our largest task, only being able to use natural material and a 10*10 sheet of plastic, our objective was to be able to create a fort suitable for the crazy temperatures. The first step was to make an outline in the snow so we knew exactly where to dig. With limited use of material we had to make sure out outline was big enough for a person and small enough to fit under the tarp. After deciding upon measurments you can see Grace begins by carving the outline with her hands. Once we got our outline we dug out a hole with our hands. Then the next step was to find away to make this snow fort warm enough to live in. What we did was line the base of the fort with shrumbbery from the woods. This served as insulation fo anyone laying inside. Next, we added sticks for stab

I have attempted to build igloos in the past and i have found that various building techniques do not work. Building from the ground up is unstable and difficult/impossible to close at the top. Digging  into an existing snow mound is difficult because of ice, large chunks of snow, and general significant variations in snow density. Therefore, for this project, I decided to approach the construction of an igloo from a new angle that combines both strategies and eliminates the failings of both. I decided to build the igloo from the ground up with a self packed pile of snow. I began by first placing down two yard waste trash cans on their sides oriented so that their open sides face away from each other. This would allow for the elimination of one other major issue with igloo building; maintaining a stable entryway of decent size. I oriented the trash cans so that the pile of snow would be centered on the second can and the first would end at the same point as the edge of the snow pile. F

Even though the weather has been in the single digits the past week, building the snow fort was not as bad as I thought it was going to be. I had dreaded building this fort because of how cold and gross it was outside, but eventually I thought about it and it didn't seem as bad. Using snow from the past snowstorm we just had, I built a fort that could fit one to two people (depending on the size of the person). The first step for building the fort was to plan out what I was going to building. I needed to think about what I was going to use and what I was going to do with it. Since there was already so much snow, I figured I would just use as much snow as possible and try not to use much more materials than that. After I had an idea of what I wanted to build, I start working. First I piled up a big mound of snow, and then I got a shovel to dig a hole in it. I made the hole big enough for a person to fit through, but not too big. After I dug the entry way I started to make ro

Finding a place to build my fort:  The neighborhood I live in made it very hard to find a place where you can use wood or even leaves. I noticed there was a lot of snow in my backyard so I stuck to that.  Building the Fort:  I started off by putting a small sheet of plastic on the ground to serve as a floor for the fort. I then used a shovel and brought a bunch of the snow in a pile. The most frustrating part was how the snow was soft. This made it hard to shape or to build up on. After each layer of snow, I would walk on it or lay down on it to try to make it more dense/hard or at least stick together.  After doing this for a solid hour, I finally got a somewhat round shape. The snow got a little harder but to prevent it from crumbling, I put a thin sheet of plastic (you can see it in the picture below if you look closely) and then added more snow on top of it. To be completely honest, I don't know if adding the plastic did anything but it did not fall apar