It’s a Dream for Year 12 Physics Students
Year 12 take their Physics lessons to the world outside the classroom
You know Christmas is approaching because it was time for the annual trip to Dreamworld for Year 12 Physics students! One of the students gives their account below:
“It’s not often that we get to apply our physics knowledge to the real world, which makes the trip extra special. We download accelerometers onto our phones and then jump on the rides to measure the g-force. The accelerometers tell us how much our apparent weight changes and how much heavier we are becoming because of the centripetal forces. If you measure a ride as 2g then you weigh twice as much as you usually do and so feel heavier. This is what causes those funny faces in the photographs of people on rollercoasters.
We can then use these readings to compare the different rides and come up with our very own Vomit Factor™! We can also think about thermal physics in Snow Town and wave theory on the log flume! Most importantly it makes us think about the application of all the theory we have learnt in class our the last term. We also get to a have little fun…”
