Clown Town, The Clown Coaster | A Thrilling Carnival Roller Coaster Ride

Have you ever been to Disneyland, Disney World, Great America, Six Flags, Universal Studios or any amusement park? Have you ever seen the giant roller coasters that are towering over the people in the park? Have you ever been on them? The fun, thrilling and adventurous rides are made for all different types of daring people all over the world. But they take a lot of physics to make. With gravity-defying loops and corkscrews, hanging people and enormous hills and drops, they have people screaming on the top of their lungs, and scientists scratching their heads. One thing's for sure, if Isaac Newton was alive for the first roller coaster, he would have been the first person hired on the team. Newton's first three laws of physics are seen. The first law of an object in motion stays in motion is seen on the ride as the carts rush through until the end when they are acted upon by the friction, gravity and wind resistance. His second law of F=M*A is seen when calculating the force of the cart on the ride. Newton's third law of everything has an equal and opposite reaction is seen when the cart goes through the breathtaking loops as it goes up and down. This makes for an awesome end of the unit project for students studying physics and energy because of the hands-on building experience and real-life problems. Maybe we can do some more roller coaster design...


Backwards-Looking

I knew a lot about physics before I started this project. I had worked on this unit for a long time and knew how to do the calculations that I needed to do. I also knew how all of Newton’s laws of physics worked. This helped me when it was time to do the roller coaster project because I was able to do the calculations quickly and answer the questions easily. This helped me to overall finish the project even though I had no idea how to construct a roller coaster. I also had a lot of fun doing the sketches and the blueprint because that is something that comes easily to me on the whole.

Inwards-Looking

What satisfies me most about this project is that I was able to build a working and good looking roller coaster. This was very fun to do and I had a lot of creativity when coming up with possible themes and designs. I also had lots of fun and am overly satisfied with the way it looks. We sure decorated to heart's content. This was an amazing experience and I loved having the satisfaction of building the ride and decorating it to make it look really nice.

Outwards-Looking

In this project, my group followed the same criteria and constraints list and we did the same project, but we did ours a little bit different than other groups. For instance, our ride spends 95 percent of the time in the air. The whole structure was built with straws and Popsicle sticks, we had no cups in our design, we had no paper tunnels and many different hills. We also built our roller coaster really fast and spent a lot more time decorating then we did building it and trying to get it to work. Our process was similar though, this was because we did the calculations and questions last, sketched first and built second. This seemed to be the general way to do it.

Forwards-Looking

One thing I would like to improve upon is doing the calculations and the harder and more tedious things, before doing the fun parts and building. This is because we could have built the basic working structure, then done the calculations, then made any decorations or changes to the ride and update the calculations. That way we would have a basic outline or format and have it be easier to work with. It also would have helped us to not go so crazy with the theme and decor because that was not the main part of the project.

Energy types and transformations | Fans, lights and electricity

 













Millions of people all over the world turn on lights and fans every day, and in America alone, millions of people plug in their phone per day. Electricity and electrical stuff we now take for granted, but there is a science behind it all. There are six general forms of energy, chemical, mechanical, thermal, light, electrical, and nuclear. Chemical energy is the potential energy stored in chemical substances. Mechanical energy is the type of energy that is acquired or released by moving an object. Thermal energy which is the type of energy made by the motion of molecules, this is seen a lot when heating things up. Light energy is the form of electromagnetic energy. Electrical energy is the type of energy that is a product of the movements of electrons, this is what we use to power fans, blow dryers and more. Finally, nuclear energy is the energy stored in the nucleus of an atom. All of these types of energy can be converted into another. Actually, most things require a lot of energy transformations for them to happen. But with this comes the law of conservation energy. This states that energy can not be created nor destroyed; rather it can only be transformed from one form to another. We use energy transformations every day. From turning on a fan to eating dinner, we are transforming the energy that we will then use and pass on for it to be transformed yet again.

S&EP
SP2: Using Models

Models and simulations help scientists picture and test things on a daily basis. It helps scientists to come up with an explanation and/or a solution to a problem or idea that they had. Models can help scientists to understand energy transformations. By using models and simulations, I was able to identify what type of energy transformation was happening to make some of the things we use every day, be usable. This was a way of me seeing how energy transformations worked and how they affected our daily lives just like the science in our lives shows up daily.

XCC
XCC: Energy and Matter

Matter makes up anything that has a mass, it makes up you and me and the people around us. Energy is the force that allows us to do stuff and for things to happen, like electricity or being able to move. Many parents allow a time for their children to "let their energy out" But how is energy let out of things that aren't living, breathing, objects? Take the cable that your phone was probably plugged into at some point today. How does the chord transfer electricity (a form of energy), out and into your phone/device? The answer is simple, energy transformations. Energy transforms into different types of itself to perform different tasks. For example, you can't use wind energy itself to power your phone, but you can use the output of windmills, electricity. The electricity is just being transformed in the process of wind to your phone so that it can charge it.

Kinetic and Potential energy | The physics behind trampolines

Potential Energy on Shelves Gizmo : Lesson Info : ExploreLearning by Mary Christine

Many people have been on trampolines before. The springy surface throwing you back up and into the sky everytime you come back down. Not only are trampolines a great way to get moving and have fun, but they also show us a ton of physics. Your kinetic and potential energy changing with every jump. But how? Let's freeze time right as your feet hit the trampoline. There are two types of energy happening because of your recent motion. Kinetic and potential energy. Kinetic energy is the energy that an object has when it is in motion. Otherwise known as the energy of motion. Currently, your kinetic energy is at its peak, just before you hit level ground. Potential energy is an object's stored up energy, what energy the object can use when moving. Your peak of potential energy is the same number as the peak of your kinetic energy, they just happen at two different points. Right now, with your feet at level ground, your potential energy is at 0, a complete opposite of your kinetic energy which has recently reached its max. We start time again and stop it just in time for your feet to be at their lowest point. The trampoline has bent downwards and is just about to spring you back up and into the air. An example of Newton's third law of physics. At this point, your kinetic energy is at 0 and your potential energy is climbing to its max. We let time go again just to freeze it while you are at the peak of your jump. Your potential energy is now the same as your kinetic energy was when your feet were at level ground, maxed out. Plus, your kinetic energy is at the same as your potential energy was when you were at level ground, 0. Meaning that you energy when jumping on the trampoline were opposites of each other at certain points. If that part seemed weird, you might want to stop jumping on the trampoline because these are the formulas for you to use when wanting to figure out potential and kinetic energy of objects. First off, potential, the formula for potential energy is U=mgh, where u is potential energy, m is mass, g is gravitational acceleration and h is height. Now kinetic, the formula for kinetic energy is K=1/2 m(v squared) when K is kinetic, m is mass and v is speed. Using all of this you can jump into physics with a basic knowledge of potential and kinetic energy.

S&EP
SP2: Using models

Models help scientists understand a lot of things, it can also help scientists to see how things work and why they work. But models and simulations help scientists when testing things an doing experiments. One of the ways that you can represent kinetic and potential energy is through a simulation type model. Like items on a shelf. When the said items are on the shelf, they have no kinetic energy and the max potential energy, if you knock the item off of the shelf, the potential energy decreases as it falls and the kinetic energy increases as it is falling down until it reaches its max. This shows the pattern of potential and kinetic energy in a visual and interactive model.

XCC
XCC: Patterns

Patterns are all around us. You find them in nature, schedules, and science. One representation of patterns seen in science is kinetic and potential energy. This is a pattern because of the way the values of potential and kinetic energy work. When the potential energy of an object is at 0, the kinetic energy value is at its max. Then when you get to a point where the value of kinetic energy is at zero, the potential energy is the same max value that the kinetic energy value was when the potential energy value was at zero. This can be seen on hills. At the top of the hill, the potential energy is at say, 250 joules, the kinetic energy is at 0 joules. Then at the bottom of the hill, the potential energy is at 0 joules and the kinetic energy is at 250 joules. Then you go up a smaller hill and the potential energy is at 100 joules and the kinetic energy is at 0 joules. Once you reach the bottom of that hill, the potential energy is at 0 joules and the kinetic energy is at 100 joules. This repeats over and over as a pattern.