Physics of *Sports?*

Evidence of Work

Caleb Luis - Physics of *Sports?* Momentum Video Analysis

This project got its name as a reference to the Physics of Sports project that we did freshman year. This time, however, we analyzed videos of Hot Wheel cars crashing into each other and conserving momentum. We first had to find times and corresponding distances from the slow-motion video. This proved difficult, because the video was not very clear at times, and the refresh rate of the screen showing a time stamp was not high enough. We used this data to calculate velocities at various times. Given the masses of the two cars, we then calculated momentum either directly, or my first calculating kinetic energy. We could also calculate friction impulse to add to our graphs, all to try to prove conservation of momentum as accurately as possible.

Content

  • Velocity

    • V=d / t

      • The speed of the cars was critical to accurately calculating momentum and proving conservation of momentum

  • Momentum

    • P=mv

      • The whole point of this project was to prove that momentum is never created nor destroyed, only transferred

  • Impulse

    • J=Ft

      • By calculating the force due to friction, as well as measuring the time that force was exerted, impulse could be calculated

  • Kinetic Energy

    • KE= 0.5mv^2

      • To calculate how much energy was transferred from one car to another, we had to calculate their kinetic energies

  • Collision elasticity

    • KE final / KE initial

      • By dividing the final kinetic energy by the initial kinetic energy, we can determine what percentage of the collision was elastic.

Reflection

As one might expect in a semester-long online AP Physics course, Conscientious Learning was paramount. We all had to learn the content largely independently. Without proper physics knowledge, this project would not have been possible. Critical Thinking was also vital, as we had to think of our own way to prove conservation of momentum. Also,

All that said, Communication slipped up a little bit on my end. While the rest of my group was working on Collision 1, I had accidentally started working on Collision 2, which made discussing calculations confusing until we realized that I had messed up. Another sub-par area was Collaboration. Since I started Collision 2 before everyone else, I was almost done when they finished Collision. Therefore, I ended up finishing up Collision 2 largely independently, by choice.