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Blog #3 - Winter Break Hockey Game

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 of what else I can do with this information.  I decided to turn it into a graph to easier visualize.  I plugged in the values from the table into the graph and then used the calculator to find the line of best fit.  (for some reason I got an error code when I tried to call the y-axis "angle" so I just named it "degree")

     In conclusion, as the angle that you hit the puck at increases, the less force is required to make the puck lose contact with the ground.



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