Cedar Point!

The field trip to Cedar Point was very tiring, but a lot of fun. Mr. Ambrose and I carpooled, while his students who were going rode the bus with Ms. Jones' physics students. When we got there, the students started out by getting the work done so they could concentrate on having fun after lunch. For their first activity, they had to try to find the height of the Space Spiral using their sextent - looking at its top, getting an angular measurement, then pacing off a particular distance and taking another measurement. We discovered that the sectant was difficult to use to get accurate results - while they did get a pretty good result, it took a number of different tries, and was very touchy. Small errors in the angular measurement could result in large errors in the result, which was an important point. The photos below show Mr. Ambrose and the students using the sextant, pacing off distances (and calibrating their pacing with a tape measure), and doing the data recording and calculations.

The students analyzed several other rides as well - the carousel (circular motion measurements and calculations), the Demon Drop (free-fall), the Wicked Twister, and their choice of one of the park's roller coasters (energy and kinematic equations). Of course, once the analysis was done, it was time for fun, and they went on quite a few rides just to enjoy them - including some that were a little much for me, though I did go with them on the Demon Drop, a few of the roller coasters, the carousel, and one of those rides that spins you around really fast.

I've got a lot of pictures, more than I can reasonably post here. I'll put the rest of them on CTOOLS for anyone else in the program who wants them, and I've already burned a set of CD's for Mr. Ambrose and for the students - I'm sure they'll want to have them as a memento of their trip.