Build the Funnest Swing

In order to display our growth over the year we were tasked with creating a project of our own design the exemplifies our knowledge.

Content

  • Torque - a twisting force that tends to cause rotation --> T=Fr---

  • Moment of Inertia - quantitative measure of the rotational motion of a body --> 1/12m^2

  • Angular Momentum - a vector quantity that is a measure of the rotational momentum of a rotating body or system

  • RPM - rotations per minute

To display the knowledge we learned over the course of the year, we attempted to go back to our roots. Hoping to calculate force and velocity amongst other things, we decided to discuss the amount of force needed to knock someone out. However, upon further research, we discovered that knock outs are related to torque and RPM.

Before any computations, we had to select our project. In order to do so, we created a plan explaining our idea and its relvancy to us and the world.

Copy of Final Project template - AP Physics
Final Project (Jun 9, 2022 at 8:32 AM).MOV

We then created a spoof video, warning children of the true danger of frisbee, soccer, and football. We found that we needed an RPM of 43,000 and from their we could determine the angular velocity and the moment of inertia is a constant. Using those two values we could find the force needed to induce a knock out and then found the velocities needed for each object to reach that force.

Reflection

Mr. Williams, my AP Physics teacher as well as my first STEM teacher, is an amazing educator. He puts his all into his students and it is something that is tangible. I always felt that he was excited not only for our ideas, but for our mistakes, and after four years of STEM I can easily say he inspired me to pursue a STEM path in college, after I change my major of course. He has went out of his way multiple times to ensure his class is a safe space, filled with kindness and cultural competence.

With that said, my interest in physics has definitely grown over the year. Although I wasn't the most diligent studier, my grades improved on tests over time because the content taught builds upon eachother. The farther into the year, the more practice we have with equations and knowing when to apply them, as well as simple concepts and proportional relationships. I feel that in the beginning of the year I was overwhelmed by the complexity of the concepts I remember being insanely simple (how does velocity for from distance/time to a polynomial?) but as time went on, I've been able to grasp the concepts that made me fall in love with science to begin with.