Re: amusement park physics for middle school

[Zach Wolff <zachary_wolff@yahoo.com>]

---Beth Thacker <thackerb@gvsu.edu> wrote:
>      
>      Has anyone done amusement park physics for middle school
students?  If 
>      so, what did you do?
>      
>      Beth Thacker
>      thackerb@gvsu.edu
My physics teacher, Greg Kifer (also on this list), offered amusement
park physics to my 11th grade physics class as an extra credit option.
 The only equipment we used was a pair of accelerometers (one designed
to be used horizontally, the other vertically) and a homemade
surveying device used to find the angle of elevation to a distant
object (used to find it's height by pacing off the distance to the
base).  Topics covered included:

uniform circular motion: find the centripetal force required on a ride
called "The Finnish Fling" essentialy seats on cables attached to a
central hub that spins, sending the seats upward and outwards.

frictional forces: find mu for a ride in which a drum spins, pressing
the passengers against a wall, as teh floor drops.  Riders are held on
the wall and do not slide down. (this also involves uniform circular
motion)

potential vs. kinetic energy: estimate the maximum theoretical speed
of a ride by measuring the height difference in its longest drop.

effeciency: compare this speed with the advertised maximum speed of
the ride.

statistics and economics: watch some of the games and find the average
winning percentage of players as well as average number of times the
game is played per hour.  Compare to price of game and value of prizes
(Okay, it's not necessarily physics, but it's sickening to actually do
the math and see how much the parks are raking in).

We also measured both the horizontal and vertical accelerations on
several rides, just to get a sense of what 2 g's (or any other
measured amount) really is.

I think that's most of what we did.  My teacher just gave us a packet
of questions and let us go to the park and complete them at our own
leisure.  He did attend one day to help anyone who wanted to come that
particular day.  I'm sure there are lots of other things that can be
done if you are interested in actually taking a class to the park to
teach instead of just doing it as a sort of lab the students do
themselves.

Zach
zachary_wolff@yahoo.com

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