Roller Coasters

In class, we are building roller coasters. Some of this has to do with kinetic and potential energy. Kinetic energy is the energy of motion. Potential energy is the energy of position. Roller coasters also deal with Newton's laws of motion. His first law states that an object at rest will remain at rest and an object in motion will remain in motion at constant velocity unless acted upon by an unbalanced force. Newton's second law explains how force, mass, and acceleration are related. The third law states that for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. Some new facts I learned from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newton%27s_laws_of_motion were that Newton gave credit to Galileo for his first law. I also learned that another name for his third law is law of reciprocal actions, and that inertia was described in the third century BC by the Chinese philosopher Mo Tzu.

I think that building roller coasters is fun and educational at the same time. It is also challenging because it's tricky when the marble doesn't make it through. I think that energy and Newton's laws apply a lot to what we're doing.