E=MCHammer²

=Hershey Park=

Physics can been seen anywhere and everywhere on a daily basis. However, at an amusement park, it can be seen in a mass quantity Whether it deals with how you got to the park, or the rides, games or activities you participate in there, physics runs the place. In our experience, we ran into thrill rides, arcade games, entertainment, and some bored moments along they way(due to the rain) that put us in tough situations. Overall, we seemed to find a lot of physics being demonstrated on the way, and inside the park itself.

All the freakin' juniors stole the back of the bus! Their acceleration when entering the bus surpassed the AP physics students, and gave them an unfair advantage on the ride to the park.

We waited in line in the rain for Fahrenheit for an hour...only for it to close when we got to the front...which is disappointing...relative to our Hershey Park Happy.

This was probably the most interesting thing we saw or did the first 2 hours we were there. media type="file" key="100_0084.MOV"

...until of course, we saw this. media type="file" key="100_0086.MOV" The singers are singing into the microphones where the sound is send to an amplifier, amplified, and released through the speakers where the sound waves can then reach our ears.

media type="file" key="100_0091.qt" In skee ball, the ball is rolled up the path until it hits the ramp which ramps it into the target, hopefully to land in a high scoring hole. After it leaves your hand, it is simple 1-dimensional motion of a ball with an initial velocity rolling on a flat surface, perhaps 2-dimensional if the path has a slight grading to it. It then hits the ramp, which is when projectile motion takes over. The ball flies through the air in a parabolic arc until it hits the target and falls through the 100-point hole.

Our day started out a little rough. Even before we got to the park, it started to drizzle. We knew that this was going to keep up if not worsen as the day went on. This meant not too many rides would be open. We wanted to make sure we got in our favorite rides as well as got good information for our project, so we headed over to Fahrenheit. The picture of this ride is shown above. Fahrenheit is a roller coaster that has an incline of ninety degrees on the way up and a drop of about ninety-seven. The chain connects to the bottom of the car and provides enough force to carry the car up the steep hill and allow it to begin its run. When the car makes it over the top of the crest and begins its decent, the track bends slightly inwards and gives you the feeling as if you are falling out of the car. The rest of the ride consists of a series of turns, other drops and of course corkscrews. The whole ride is only about a minute long, and we were very anxious to ride it. However, just as we were making our way to the front part of the line, the bad weather kicked in and they shut the ride down. The reason the weather affects the rides is because when the tracks get wet the coefficient of friction is greatly reduced. The braking system has a very tough time slowing the car down on the wet tracks, making the rides very dangerous. Nevertheless, we were very disappointed that we were unable to ride the ride then.

Since Fahrenheit wasn't working, we decided to make our way to get something to eat. While searching we found that the Trailblazer was open so we chose to ride that. There was barely any line and we got right on. The operator of the ride allowed Justin to wear his camera strap that he had made to video tape the ride. Below shows the full duration of our experience. media type="file" key="100_0085.mp4" As you can see by our video, this ride does not contain any large drops, loops or corkscrews. The main attraction for this ride are the hair bending turns. They occur on the latter part of the ride, and are somewhat suspenseful. The physics behind these turns deals mainly with centrifugal force. The speed of the coaster forces the car outward so it doesn't fall to the ground. It makes for a fun attraction for younger kids.

Once we finished our adventure on the trailblazer, we headed over to the bumper cars. This is a classic ride that almost every amusement park has. The first type of physics that this ride deals with, is with current. The cars are run by electric power. The operation of this is basically a simple circuit. There is a power source, a medium for the current to pass through, which is the metal in the ceiling, a switch and a machine which was the car. When the cars are moving about the floor, the switch is on and the current is flowing through the wires on the ceiling, down through the hook on the top of the car, and then the car moves. However, when the switch is off, there is no movement from the cars at all. No electricity was passing through the wires on the ceiling. The second type of physics that occurs during the bumper cars deals with collisions. Both elastic and inelastic collisions occur. An elastic collision is when car one hits car two and car two moves away from car one, while car one stays still. An inelastic collision occurs when car one hits car two and both of them move on the same path, still touching, that car one was traveling. Both of these collisions occurred when we had our ride. Below is the the video of our experience with the bumper cars.

media type="file" key="100_0093.mp4" After we finished the bumper car riding, we decided to get something to eat. While we chowed down, we decided that we better try and get in another coaster ride. So once we finished up, we made our way over to the lightning racers. As we were walking, Fahrenheit opened again. Naturally we jumped in line and only waited about ten minutes and got the front seat. The people working the ride wouldn't allow Justin to bring his camera on the ride so we didn't get any footage. However, this was truly a great experience. Fahrenheit was quite the experience. The ride started with a vertical lift hill for the coaster. There has never been a coaster designed such as this one with a vertical lift before. The coaster reaches a height of 121 feet at the peak of the lift hill, and at this point, the coaster reaches it maximum potential energy. The coaster reaches its maximum kinetic energy when it plummets down a 97-degree slope drop. When it is at its maximum kinetic energy level, the coaster is traveling at 58 miles per hour. The force of the coaster traveling down the 97-degree slope is against the natural inertia of the passengers, that normally travel straight down. This means that the ride must have over the shoulder safety harnesses so that the passengers do not fly of the train when the coaster heads down the original lift hill. After the first drop, he coaster heads up 107 feet to an inverted loop. The reason the second hill is 14 feet shorter than the first hill is first, because of air resistance, and second, the coaster experiences friction on the track. Overall, there is much to be discussed physics wise about a coaster like Fahrenheit, especially with all the new physics applications it has brought into the world of thrill rides.

Almost as soon as we were done here we made our way over to the lightning racers. There was hardly any line at all and we got right on the front seat of this coaster as well. We did a little trickery and were able to keep the camera on this ride. Below is the video of our ride. media type="file" key="100_0094.mp4"As you can see and hear by our video, we had a good time on this ride. Just like every other coaster, this ride has it's maximum potential energy at the top of the hill. As it is falling, it loses potential but gains kinetic energy. However, no energy is every lost or destroyed, it just changes states. After the coaster falls, it proceeds to to travel along the track, and up series of other hills. These other hills cannot be as steep as the one before it because the velocity of the coaster is slowed down due to air resistance and friction between the cars and the track. Nevertheless, the creators of this ride still find ways to make it exciting after the first drop. In addition to the other hills, the track also makes banking turns in which the centrifugal force keeps the coaster and its passengers along the track. When we were finished with this ride, we got a drink and then got right back on and rode it again. However, after the second run the skies started to darken even more than it what it was. So we started our way back to the front of the park, and on towards chocolate world. We finally got there just as the rain started to pick up. A few other groups had the same idea we did and we all met up on the chocolate world ride. Below just shows a bit of the fun we encountered on our wondrous excersion through the inner workings of chocolate world. media type="file" key="100_0095.MOV" All in all, we had a great time there. It is a great way to have fun with a physics class and still get a good educational experience out of it. Hopefully future classes will be able to experience. We are very grateful that we were able to go on this trip.