A playground can provide a valuable physics education laboratory. For example, Taylor et al.1 describe bringing teachers in a workshop to a playground to examine the physics of a seesaw and slide, and briefly suggest experiments involving a merry-go-round. In this paper, we describe an experiment performed by students from a Society of Physics Students organization and their faculty advisor on a merry-go-round at a local park. The goal of the activity was for everyone to gain a greater understanding of the concepts of angular velocity, centripetal acceleration, moment of inertia, and conservation of angular momentum through their own personal experience—and to have fun, too.
REFERENCES
1.
Richard
Taylor
, David
Hutson
, Wesley
Krawiec
, Jhone
Ebert
, and Robin
Rubinstein
, “Computer physics on the playground
,” Phys. Teach.
33
, 332
–337
(Sept. 1995
).2.
Part of the iLife suite on the Macintosh by Apple computer (http://www.apple.com).
3.
The uncertainty is calculated according to standard procedures for propagating random errors in a calculation, as described in depth by J.R. Taylor, An Introduction to Error Analysis (University Science Books, Herndon, VA,1982), pp. 56–57.
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© 2007 American Association of Physics Teachers.
2007
American Association of Physics Teachers
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