Quick! Finish the following thought: "Life is good when..."
This may not have been the first thing to come to mind, but how about the following: "...you're a high school student and you get to have class on skis."
In what has become an annual event, SBA Physics students took to the Sugar Bowl park and race arena recently.
"We took video for analysis of straight-line and centripetal acceleration," said teacher Steve Ascher.
"We also took accelerometer measurements of free-skiing acceleration. We capped things off with a demonstration of students as human projectiles in the park to allow for analysis of their trajectories and measurements of acceleration due to gravity."
Here's video footage of Dylan Murtha going airborne off a park jump:
Here's a subsequent analysis of his trajectory and measurement of acceleration (click on the image to see it in enlarged):
"It was a lot of fun, and we got to look at the material in an entirely new perspective," said Steven Tetrault. "It's amazing to actually look at the kinds of forces and accelerations we undergo without even thinking about it - some of us were supporting more than twice our weights during our runs!"
This may not have been the first thing to come to mind, but how about the following: "...you're a high school student and you get to have class on skis."
In what has become an annual event, SBA Physics students took to the Sugar Bowl park and race arena recently.
"We took video for analysis of straight-line and centripetal acceleration," said teacher Steve Ascher.
"We also took accelerometer measurements of free-skiing acceleration. We capped things off with a demonstration of students as human projectiles in the park to allow for analysis of their trajectories and measurements of acceleration due to gravity."
Here's video footage of Dylan Murtha going airborne off a park jump:
"It was a lot of fun, and we got to look at the material in an entirely new perspective," said Steven Tetrault. "It's amazing to actually look at the kinds of forces and accelerations we undergo without even thinking about it - some of us were supporting more than twice our weights during our runs!"
Lesson plans for the mind, body, and spirit, brought to you by Sugar Bowl Academy Physics teacher Steve Ascher!
