IT, Physics and Liseberg?

  • Position, velocity, acceleration - coordinate systems
  • Vectors - representation and addition
  • Central motion
  • Measurements
  • Uncertainty estimates
  • Order-of-magnitude estimates
  • Matlab (or other programming) exercise
  • Equivalence principle
  • Energy principle
  • Dimensional analysis
  • Matching
  • Immediate feedback
  • Formulate problems
  • Reflect on own work

  • Learning context!
    (Follow up!)

 

An amusement park gives opportunities to study several aspects of Newton's laws, and can provide a menu of exercises with varying difficulty, where each student can find something that gives a challenge and a learning experience. (cf Montessori, "sensitive periods" and "matching")

The experience of the attractions can provide immediate feedback and the students should be encouraged to see the connections between equations and their feelings in the attraction. (E.g. this tends to help them sort out forces/acceleration in central motion.)

The presentation of the work gives a good opportunity to give additional feedback, to impose the types of questions we, as scientists, ask, including the ability to make approximations, estimates of uncertainty, order-of-magnitude calculations. The equivalence principle should make it obvious that the analysis does not depend on a person weighing 60kg - but students seem to always want to insert actual numbers.

The list above shows some of the difficulties that can be addressed in the studies of Liseberg attractions. In addition, one can look at the various "wheels" to study probability theory, and look at the queues to study the assumptions and concepts used in queueing theory. The "Virvelvinden" and "Fisketuren" could be used as exercises for the Fourier Transform (FFT) and surface plots.


Ann-Marie.Pendrill@fy.chalmers.se, 1997-03-25
This document is best on-line: http://fy.chalmers.se/~f3aamp/teaching/it/amusement.html