Amusement Park Physics

American Association of Physics Teachers Event
Feb 04, 2012 - Feb 08, 2012 in Ontario CA

Leaders: Wolfgang Christian, Mario Belloni, and Anne Cox

How do physical laws affect amusement park ride design? Rides must be designed with physics and engineering tolerances in mind, but they also need to be exciting but not dangerous to the rider. Amusement park rides are rich in physics content and are an exciting context for learning physics. This workshop will use EJS computer models and Tracker video modeling to study them. These simulations can be used for computer demonstrations or as virtual laboratories in high-school and undergraduate courses, or serve as programming examples and tasks for computational physics with higher-level students. Participants of the workshop will receive a CD with these EJS simulations and Tracker video models. These models are also in the OSP ComPADRE Collection

http://www.aapt.org/Conferences/wm2012/