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jrwalther
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Blog Entries posted by jrwalther
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Paper airplanes are something almost everyone has made but most people don't really think about ways to make it better and why some are better than others. The main factor in creating a successful paper airplane is making sure it is as aerodynamic as possible. Limiting the amount of factors to create resistance will result in a more successful trip. This includes making a tail that air will glide right over instead of getting trapped on. The two forces acting against the plane in flight are drag and gravity. Drag has to do with the aerodynamics of the plane as eliminating the factors to trap wind will help it and the way to fight gravity hurting your plane is to make it as light as possible. The two forces helping the plane in flight are thrust and lift. Thrust is the forward movement of the plane. The initial thrust comes from the thrower and after that, it really just becomes a glider. Lift is the air below the plane pushing up harder than the air is pushing down from above. That is why the wings of planes are curved so that air moves more quickly over the top of the wing creating a upward push.
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The purpose of a wind turbine is to turn the kinetic energy of the wind into electrical energy. This is the idea of most machines as energy can only be converted, it cannot be created or destroyed. Like any moving mass, the kinetic energy is calculated through the equation K=1/2mv^2. For calculating the kinetic energy in a wind turbine we would use the wind speed for velocity. The mass would be the particular volume of air. You can also find the power in the wind a turbine is using to generate its electrical energy. To find the power you would use the equation P=1/2 x air density x area x wind speed^3 x time.This shows us that the power of wind is dependent on 3 variables. We see that the area affects the power showing us that location of these wind turbines will actually play a role in how much power is generated while the others cannot be controlled.
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Catapults are ancient weapons known for doing lots of damage from a far distance. But how can a simple machine launch such big objects so far? It comes down to the way the machine is built in which it creates large amounts of potential energy by either twisting a rope or flexing wood. This potential energy is then transferred to the object when it is released. One of the most common catapults is the ballista which is basically a giant crossbow. In this the potential energy is stored in both the tension in the rope and the bent arms on the bow. The tension in it acts as a spring so in can be calculated using U=1/2kx^2. This is then converted into kinetic energy when the bow is released and that is where it is able to fire heavy objects very far.
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People who are new to soccer almost always begin kicking the ball with their toe. It seems like the best way to shoot because of how much power you are able to gain. What people don't realize is the control and accuracy that is lost when this happens. The best way to hit a ball for both power and accuracy is with the inside of your foot because of the major increase in surface area you are hitting the ball with. Kicking a ball with your toe makes it much more open to have spin that may be unwanted. Striking the ball anywhere but the center will cause either top spin, side spin or back spin and you often have little control. When you use more surface area with the inside of your foot you are able to get these same motions but with much more control as it becomes less likely of a miss hit.
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A lot more work goes into creating a more smart life-like video game each year including Fifa. A major break through in Fifa 14 was that they finally figured out how to make the ball sail smartly through the air. The engineers working on the physics of the game finally found the problem that was making the ball look like it was just shot in a linear path. They found that their drag coefficient was broken. This models air resistance and affects the trajectory and speed of the ball when it is in flight. In previous years the ball was violating the laws of physics by accelerating and decelerating at rates unaffected by the initial kick speed. This fix also fixed the spin of the ball in flight. Previously the ball would be spinning one way but would curve the other way. With this new air resistance fix to the game, the ball now has realistic trajectory when it is kicked, a more realistic acceleration and deceleration, and a more realistic spin on the ball when it is in flight.
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I watched a cool lab video on a professor giving a visual representation of gravity. The idea of gravity has always been pretty easy for me to understand and easy to use in equations but where I begin to lose that understanding is when we leave earth and look at how it holds everything together. How space is constantly expanding but these planets, moons and stars are constantly effecting each other. In this video you get to see how gravity really makes these things work together to make space what it is. The part I found coolest was when he explained and showed why all the planets are going around the sun the same way. In this case it is clockwise and anything going the opposite way around the sun was or would be eliminated. This was due to collisions and as he says, those going counter clock wise were not heading in the 'preferable direction'.
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